“The advent of digital cameras and smartphones killed the traditional mall portrait studio, but 3-D printing has sparked a new trend. Overloaded with digital photos, statues may be moving in to fulfill our desire for portraits that stand out”. – Peter Svensson via The Associated Press. (Photo by Julie Jacobson/AP Photo)

Members of the “Exit Point” amateur rope-jumping group jump from a 44-metre high (144-ft) waterpipe bridge in the Siberian Taiga area outside Krasnoyarsk, September 13, 2015. Rope-jumping, an extreme sport, involves jumping from a high point using an advanced leverage system combining mountaineering and rope safety equipment. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

James Brady and a police officer are seen lying on the ground after being shot while the suspect John Hinckley Jr. is apprehended,at right, moments after the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, Washington, DC, March 30, 1981. (Photo by Dirck Halstead/Getty Images)

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)

North Korean youngsters sing and play accordions to entertain foreign visitors including United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, who visited Pyongyang, May 4, 1979. Visitors report music education in North Korea begins at an early age and is taken seriously by children and adults. (Photo by Peter Arnett/AP Photo)

Marchers kiss as they walk down 5th Avenue as they part in the 2019 World Pride NYC and Stonewall 50th LGBTQ Pride Parade in New York, U.S., June 30, 2019. (Photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

A Palestinian man waves from his home as a clown and a man in a costume perform to entertain people amid concerns about the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on April 19, 2020. (Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)

English singer and songwriter Dua Lipa performs onstage during the Dua Lipa Future Nostalgia Tour at FTX Arena on February 09, 2022 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Jason Koerner/Getty Images)