These powerful images capture the spear-wielding tribes of Papua new Guinea who believe they are possessed with the spirit of the crocodile. They show how the Kangunaman clansmen scar their backs to resemble reptile scales while the Huli Wigmen wear elaborate headdresses to signal they are ready for battle. (Photo by Trevor Cole/Media Drum World)

Newlyweds pose on a zebra crossing for wedding photographers during the 2018 soccer World Cup in Samara, Russia, Sunday, July 8, 2018. (Photo by Frank Augstein/AP Photo)

Ramoncito Campo kisses his wife Hernelie Ruazol Campo on a flooded street during a southwest monsoon that battered Manila August 8, 2012. The newly-wed couple pushed through with their scheduled wedding despite severe flooding that inundated wide areas of the capital and nearby nine provinces. (Photo by Reuters/Courtesy of Ramoncito Campo)

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)

In this Tuesday, March 31, 2015 photo, Indian women walk carrying firewood they collected from a forest at Gobhali village on the outskirts of Gauhati, India. Every evening, hundreds of millions of Indian women hover over crude stoves making dinner for their families. They feed the flames with polluting fuels like kerosene or cow dung, and breathe the acrid smoke wafting from the fires. (Photo by Anupam Nath/AP Photo)

Members of the Gafatar sect walk in the rain as they evacuate their compound, which was later burned down by local villagers, in Antibar village, Mempawah Regency, Indonesia West Kalimantan Province, January 19, 2016 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. Local authorities and police moved the sect members to an army barracks located some 70 km (43 miles) away from Antibar for their safety following recent disputes between the sect and the villagers, Antara said on Tuesday. (Photo by Jessica Helena Wuysang/Reuters/Antara Foto)

A monkey drinks water from a tap on a hot afternoon in Jammu, the winter capital Kashmir, India, 17 May 2016. Temperatures of around 42 degrees Celsius were forecast in the region. According to the news reports the Indian government decided to divert water by its river interlinking plans from rivers like Brahmaputra and the Ganges towards those rivers facing the drought likesituation . Many Indian states have been affected by drought and have been hit hard by water scarcity. (Photo by Jaipal Singh/EPA)

In this May 31, 2016 photo, pieces of watermelon litter the trash area of the Coche public market in Caracas, Venezuela. Staples such as corn flour and cooking oil are subsidized, costing pennies at the strongest of two official exchange rates. But fruit and vegetables have become an unaffordable luxury for many Venezuelan families. (Photo by Fernando Llano/AP Photo)