Some 300 girls and women in India still practise open defecation. Over half the country’s population, 800 million people, do not have access to a toilet that meets basic standards. (Photo by Poulomi Basu/WaterAid)

With the United Nations and Tudor City in the foreground, lightning strikes in the sky over the East River as a major storm approaches New York City July 2, 2014. Tropical Storm Arthur, the first of the Atlantic hurricane season, gathered strength July 20, 2014 and would likely reach hurricane strength over the next couple of days. (Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP Photo)

The Rainbow Warrior III, the newest ship of the enivornmental conservation organization Greenpeace, makes its way to port on the Elbe River on October 20, 2011 in Hamburg, Germany. The Rainbow Warrior III, 53 meters long, designed by Greenpeace and built in Poland and Germany, is a EUR 23 million project completed last week. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Wrecked tanks are seen close to the road that leads to the village of Imber on December 31, 2011 on Salisbury Plain, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Workers attach 288 new Waterford Crystal Triangles on the 2012 Times Square New Year's Eve Ball at One Times Square on December 27, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Jason Kempin/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)

Two three-month-old female white Bengal tiger cubs play with a zoo keeper in their enclosure at the Buenos Aires' Zoo, in Argentina, on April 17, 2014. Captive white Bengal tiger Cloe, gave birth to three cubs – two females and one male – on January 14, 2014. (Photo by Juan Mabromata/AFP Photo)

Victoria's Secret Angels Candice Swanepoel and Erin Heatherton attend Victoria's Secret Very s*xy Tour stop in New York at the Victoria's Secret at Herald Square on March 13, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Victoria's Secret)