A competitor tries to swipe away some grease as he slips off the “gostra”, a pole covered in grease, during the celebrations for the religious feast of St Julian, patron of the town of St Julian's, outside Valletta August 30, 2015. In the traditional “gostra”, a game stretching back to the Middle Ages, young men, women and children have to make their way to the top of a pole and try to uproot one of the flags to win prizes. Photo by Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters)

An image of the popular video game “Angry Birds” is displayed on an iPod Touch on March 18, 2011 in San Anselmo, California. The “Angry Birds” mobile device video game developer Rovio is begnning the process of seeking an initial public offering (IPO). (Photo Illustration by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Indigenous women from the Kamayura tribe take part in a demonstration of Huka Huka fight at the first World Games for Indigenous Peoples in Palmas, Brazil, October 29, 2015. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)

In the spring of 1965, within weeks of 3,500 American Marines arriving in Vietnam, a 39-year-old Briton named Larry Burrows began work on a feature for LIFE magazine, chronicling the day-to-day experience of U.S. troops on the ground – and in the air – in the midst of the rapidly widening war. The photographs in this gallery focus on a calamitous March 31, 1965, helicopter mission; Burrows’ “report from Da Nang”, featuring his pictures and his personal account of the harrowing operation, was published two weeks later as a now-famous cover story in the April 16, 1965, issue of LIFE.

Photo: Man your battle stations: The crew chief of helicopter Yankee Papa 13, lance corporal James C. Farley, mans an M-60 machine gun during a mission near Da Nang, Vietnam on March 31, 1965. (Photo by Larry Burrows/Time & Life Pictures)

A poster advertises the highly anticipated video game, “Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” at a GameStop Corp. store November 6, 2011 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. Video game publisher Activision plans to release the eighth installment in the “Call of Duty” franchise at midnight on November 8. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Dancers from Xinjiang delegation perform during the Opening Ceremony for the 9th National Traditional Games of Ethnic Minorities of the People's Republic of China on September 10, 2011 in Guiyang, China. (Photo by Feng Li/Getty Images)

Vietnam's Pham Hong Anh in action during her single dance final during the Southeast Asian Games' DanceSport competition in Mabalacat, Philippines, December 1, 2019. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)