DACCA, Pakistan, Dec. 20— Notes on a stay in Dacca during the Indian‐Pakistani war:

Dec. 3

“I say it is not essential that one die of cancer or in a car accident. I say, why not die doing a fine job for your country and take a few of those devils with you.”

Lieut. Col. Hakeem Arshad Queshi, 39 years old, expressed the fatalism of his men best. His regiment, the 26th Frontier Force, was defending Dinajpur in the far northwest against Indian probing and shelling in the morning. The Indian invasion started a few hours later— at about teatime.

Diplomats have only fuzzy reports and military phones don't answer. The Dacca radio announces an immediate cur few and blackout. There is a poker game by candlelight at the Hotel Inter‐Continental.

Dec. 4

Fireworks. The first wave of air raids —Indian jet fighters —comes at about 3 A.M. rocketing and strafing. Tracers fill the sky from ground gunners. The war has come to Dacca,

By day the raids continue, with sorties about hourly on the airport, a mile north, of town and adjacent to the Pakistani military cantonment. Through the day there are dog fights overhead, rocketing, strafing and antiaircraft fire.

Crows, soaring above, are constantly mistaken for Indian and Pakistani warplanes.

Foreigners, waiting to be evacuated, pile into the hotel. The hotel is filled by late after noon with foreigners and frightened Pakistanis, and there is no beer.

Dec. 5

The morning paper said the “Get‐a‐Word” lottery pool competition was still on and the Naz Theater in downtown Dacca would have four showings today of “Operation Cross bow,” starring Sophia Loren.

A paid notice said: “Begum Badrunnessa regrets to announce that in view of unavoidable circumstances the marriage and walima receptions scheduled for Dec. 5 and 8 respectively on the occasion of the wedding of Ruhul Amin and Razia Ahmed have been called off. Inconvenience caused to the invitees is very much regretted.”

Dec. 6

Hotel service is fine but laundry is considered a gamble now. Hugh Breadford Syme, the Scottish chef, has been cooking on charcoal to feed about 400 people a meal since he ran out of bottled gas two weeks ago. He's been here four months and hasn't received a paycheck yet.

Six raiding planes swoop over the hotel, dropping pods that burst into orange flames and black smoke near the air port runway.

A family appears on the roof and a television correspondent says: “You're crazy. They're firing ack‐ack around here — you could get killed.” The mother snaps, “Hey, you can't talk to my kids like that!”

Gunners shoot at Indian planes on low passes over the hotel en route to the airport. With magnets, hotel workers fish shrapnel from the swimming pool daily.

Harried foreigners, their hopes for evacuation thwarted, file back into the hotel. Bernard Holt, the British manager, stands by the door In a neat blue suit, saying “Welcome to the Inter‐Continental Hotel.” He adds: “What else can I do. I said good‐by to them an hour ago.”

Mrs. Douglas Townsend of San Leandro, Calif., sits in the lobby with her gray toy poodle on her lap. “He's doing just fine now,” she says.

Dec. 7

At 1:45 P.M. the bombing starts again, and for the first time white balloons attached to ground cables appear over the airport and cantonment, presumably to ensnare a low‐flying MIG.

The bombing and antiaircraft fire keep up all afternoon, Father Timm, an American priest, has organized basket ball games at Notre Dame College here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday since the crisis began months ago. If enough people turn up this afternoon, he says, there will be a game.

Dec. 8

The hotel workers are digging slit‐trench air‐raid shelters in the back lawn near the swimming pool.

More bombing of the airport this morning, and more and more cars are topped with bushes, twigs and leaves. “If this keeps up, Dacca isn't going to have any foliage left,” some one says.

Ray Maas, an accountant for an engineering company, has been in East Pakistan since 1967. He tried to telephone his home in Marion, Ill., on Thanksgiving and was up to eighth on the list when the air raids started.

“My kids think I'm a C.I.A. agent,” he says. “Every place I go—Korea, India, Brazil— there's trouble. Now here too. My kid pulled me on the side back home once and asked me if I was an agent. I told him if I was I couldn't tell him.”

Dec, 9

Dacca looks virtually normal just after noon. Six cows graze on the traffic circle in front of the American Consulate, but on the edges of town people are fleeing, carrying what belongings they can.

At the hotel an attendant discovers a bomb in the ground‐floor women's toilet. The hotel security officer, Asgher Beg, disarms it and carries it out to the swimming pool. The word spreads through the hotel and relaxed expressions become frowns of worry.

An hour later Red Cross officials announce that as of 5 P.M. the hotel and the nearby Holy Family Hospital will be declared neutral zones. Foreigners awaiting evacuation and those Pakistanis already in residence can stay. No weapons are allowed, and the big problem is collecting all those already inside.

At 5:40 P.M., just after an other MIG completes a bombing run, hotel workers hoist wooden sign with red letters on the front of the hotel. It reads: “Neutral Zone International Red Cross Geneva.” Red cloth crosses are draped on the sides of the hotel.

At dusk a delegation of Red Cross officers and reporters goes from room to room asking guests to turn over their guns. Collected by 7 P.M. were 11 pistols, a rifle two shotguns and a lead pipe.

Ray Matelli, Esso manager for East Pakistan, worries about how he is going to collect his gasoline bill from the Pakistani Army. It owes him close to $1‐million.

Dec. 10

At a Red Cross meeting Mr. Beg, the security man, is applauded for carrying the bomb out of the hotel. It is resting under sandbags on the lawn, and people are advised to avoid walking on it.

Someone asks why room service has stopped and is told: “This is a compound now.”

Dec. 11

Just before noon the United States Information Service office is bombed. Glass covers the street out front, along with books and shreds of red cloth drapes. An air conditioner sits two feet into the street.

A man with a Sten gun had walked in, ordered everyone out, planted a briefcase containing a charge and walked out.

An hour later, opposite color photographs of Mrs. Richard Nixon, workmen are welding thick steel bolts on the door to the American Consul General's office. Fourteen people are staying, including Bernice Young, the secretary. The consulate snackbar is still serving—green pea soup, chicken or fish Orly are the luncheon specials to day.

The Red Cross announces that the bombs on the back [awn has been buried and that the swimming pool will be open tomorrow. Bathers are advised to go inside during air raids.

Dec. 12

The evacuation finally works. From Calcutta, three Royal Air Force C‐130's land after people have run around the airstrip clearing off stones and rubble.

Now the neutral zone is the domain of a few leftover diplomats, West Pakistanis and about 50 reporters. Madhav Kumar Rimal, the Nepalese Consul General and dean of the Dacca diplomatic corps, moves in. His wife and children were evacuated. The Consuls General of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Japan and Iran also move in. The move means they must give up all diplomatic functions.

Dec. 13

The curfew is lifted from 8:30 A.M. to 2 P.M., and people swarm out of town. The ferry boats at the river have raised their prices and many people cannot afford them. They wait, hoping.

The Red Cross seems to doubt the effectiveness of the press security teams around the hotel after a reporter guard accidently locked himself in the hotel bank for an hour.

At 9:15 P.M., with thuds in the distance, flares lighting parts of the sky and occasional machine‐gun bursts a few blocks away, the 30th birthday of Peter Kann of The Wall Street Journal is celebrated with champagne, crabmeat, ham and smoked oysters. The Nepalese Consul General gives him a bottle of white Margaux.

Dec. 14

There is no word if the curfew will be lifted today. At breakfast the electricity goes off temporarily and, for the first time, there Is no toast in the hotel neutral zone.

The morning paper comes out late. On its front page above a photo of President Nixon shaking his fist is a headline “Chinese Troops on Move; Seventh Fleet Units Advancing to Bay.” Inside the paper is the following notice:

“Due to emergency situation and difficulties of communication, it has been decided to suspend the Get‐a‐Word com petition in East Pakistan till further notice. Inconvenience caused to competitor due to reasons beyond the control of the management is regretted.”

Dec. 15

The Iranian Consul General is asked to leave for violating neutral‐zone rules prohibiting diplomatic business within. Descendants of Iranians who came to Pakistan a century ago — reportedly including the Ispahani family, one of Pakistan's richest — were apparently getting unauthorized passports. A mongoose crosses the street toward the hotel, sees a crowd and turns back.

As efforts to end the fighting proceed, the heading “East Pakistan” on a large wall map at the American Consulate has been crossed out. Over it in red crayon is “Bangladesh.”

At the hotel Mr. Holt says, “They're preparing the surrender papers in my office.” The chef says his egg man has been killed.

Dec. 16

Refugees and reporters gather on the hotel lawn to watch the resumption of air raids. The rumor spreads that the Indian radio says there are antiaircraft guns at the hotel and that it is likely to be bombed.

At 12:15 P.M., word of the surrender gets around town and Bengalis begin to peep from their hiding places. Paul Marc Henry, head of the United Nations Commission, pours glasses of white wine for re porters visiting his headquarters at Notre Dame College. “We kept saying to the Indians in our messages that we would all like to be home for Christmas,” he says.

Sporadic street fighting breaks out at about 2:30 P.M. amid merry processions. An Indian captain is killed in front of the hotel along with a Pakistani soldier and five Bengali civilians.

Here and there around Dacca bodies lie in the street—civilians. Pakistani soldiers, Razakar collaborators, guerrillas. There are not many and observers say the take‐over has been relatively bloodless, but no one seems to be in control as the killing and the merriment continues.

Dec. 17

The celebrating and looting and shooting continue and Indian generals appear unable to control things. Trucks and buses loaded with young Bengalis drive around, shouting and chanting, waving the flag of Bangladesh and burning up one of the rarest commodities in town—gasoline.

For three hours this reporter rides in a tiny stolen Japanese car with six Mukti Bahini guerrillas, a 30‐caliber machinegun three Sten guns, two rifles and a nearly empty bottle of Bourbon whisky.

At the bombed‐out airport thousands of Bengalis walk and drive around, playing with the antiaircraft guns, peering at Indian helicopters, collecting empty shell casings. No one is at work on the cratered air strip, which needs to be fixed quickly so relief teams and supplies can be brought in.

In town anarchy reigns and bodies lie here and there gathering flies. In the afternoon guerrillas threaten to blow up the hotel neutral zone unless the governor, Dr. A. M. Malik, and other civilian officials who collaborated with West Pakistani troops are turned over. A 2‐inch mortar is set up across the street, but cooler Bengali leaders talk the guerrillas into leaving, saying the officials will he brought to trial by the new government. Three Indian tanks arrive to guard the hotel.

Dec. 18

Near the airport the bodies of at least 20 Bengalis identified as university professors and intellectuals lie in the sun. They had been rounded up as hostages by the Razakars and policemen beginning five days ago. They look as if they have been dead about two days.

Other hastily buried bodies show under thin layers of bricks and dirt.

No one seems to know how many there are, but the guerrillas say hundreds of Bengali leaders were rounded up and killed in the past few weeks. The guerrillas say they cap Lured two razakars who con fessed to having had a part in the killings. The two were in turn “punished until they died,” the guerrillas say.

At an afternoon victory rally at the stadium, a guerrilla leader talks to several thousand Bengalis, saying that if Shiek Mujibur Rahman, their hero, is not returned to Bangladesh, its forces will invade West Pakistan, with or without the Indian Army's aid.

Besides him on the ground are three bound men who are said to have been caught looting. The guerrilla leader, student, says they will be tried later, but within minutes after his speech they are bayoneted to death as the crowd shouts “Joi Bangla!” and venders sell peanuts.