Chinese female weightlifter Xiang Yanmei, who competes in the 69 kg weightclass, rests with a weight on her stomach as she checks her phone during a training session in preparation for the Rio Olympics at the Training Center of General Administration of Sports in China on July 20, 2016 in Beijing, China. Xiang Yanmei won the World Championships in 2013 and 2015. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

A woman walks past a giant Pac-Man in Tokyo's Shinjuku area, Wednesday, August 12, 2015. The three-meter (about nine feet and 10 inches)-tall Pac-Man and other video game characters, made of Lego bricks, were on display to promote the upcoming movie “Pixels”. (Photo by Ken Aragaki/AP Photo)

A newly-married couple takes a nap before their mass wedding ceremony at the CheongShim Peace World Center in Gapyeong, South Korea, Sunday, February 17, 2013. Some 3,500 South Korean and foreign couples exchanged or reaffirmed marriage vows in the Unification Church's mass wedding arranged by Hak Ja Han Moon, a wife of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the controversial founder of the Unification Church. (Photo by Lee Jin-man/AP Photo)

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 dog sits in the shade of a mangrove tree as a woman uses a fork to dig for shellfish on the reef-mud flats of a lagoon located at South Tarawa in the central Pacific island nation of Kiribati May 23, 2013. Kiribati consists of a chain of 33 atolls and islands that stand just metres above sea level, spread over a huge expanse of otherwise empty ocean. With surrounding sea levels rising, Kiribati President Anote Tong has predicted his country will likely become uninhabitable in 30-60 years because of inundation and contamination of its freshwater supplies. (Photo by David Gray/Reuters)

“Super Enerji”. Taken on my road trip through Turkey. (Photo and caption by Michelle Brandemuehl/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

Nova Scotia Duck Tolling retriever Torrey competes in the 10th annual Petco Unleashed surfing dog contest at Imperial Beach, California August 1, 2015. Proceeds raised at the event go to benefit the San Diego Humane Society. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

A boy walks with toy guns as people ride an APC during a military show at the Finnish Gulf coast in St.Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, September 5, 2015. (Photo by Dmitry Lovetsky/AP Photo)