Russia's Maria Stavitskaia performs during the ladies short program at the Rostelecom Cup ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating in Moscow November 14, 2014. (Photo by Grigory Dukor/Reuters)

A woman promotes a go-go dance bar in Pattaya, Thailand March 25, 2017. With mascots dressed as smiling fish and a police rock band, Thai authorities launched a “Happy Zone” at the weekend to improve the image of a city notorious for sеx tourism. Stung by foreign headlines portraying the seaside resort of Pattaya as “Sin City” and “The World’s Sеx Capital”, Thailand’s junta has begun a new effort to re-brand it. Businesses in the Happy Zone are asked to make the area feel safer, there are increased security patrols, police launched a mobile phone app for visitors to summon them if an emergency occurs. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

Eagle Prime (MK3), a giant robot by MegaBots Inc. which manufactures giant piloted humanoid fighting robots headquartered in Berkeley, California on October 18, 2017. (Photo by Courtesy Michael Mauldin/Reuters/MegaBots Inc)

A “colacho” (a person dressed up as a devil) chases people during “El salto del Colacho”, the baby jumping festival in the village of Castrillo de Murcia, near Burgos on June 3, 2018. (Photo by Cesar Manso/AFP 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)

Catholic pilgrim Matilde Madalena de Jesus crawls on a rocky trail carrying a bottle of water on her head during the annual pilgrimage of the dead (Romaria dos Finados), in the city of Juazeiro do Norte, Ceara state, in Brazil October 31, 2016. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)

Afghan protesters beat a policeman after a suicide attack that targeted crowds of minority Shiite Hazaras during a demonstration at the Deh Mazang Circle of Kabul on July 23, 2016. Islamic State jihadists claimed responsibility for twin explosions July 23 that ripped through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 61 people and wounding 207 others in apparently their deadliest attack in the Afghan capital. The bombings during a huge protest over a power transmission line could deepen sectarian divisions in a country well known for communal harmony despite decades of war. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP Photo)

Couples take part in the “Love and Challenge Marathon” in Hanoi, Vietnam, 16 August 2015. Fifty couples, who are going to get married, participated in the event which is held the fifth time. This year, the winners of the marathon received a honeymoon trip to Malaysia. (Photo by Luong Thai Linh/EPA)