I AWOKE with a start: it was early dawn. As I looked at my watch, I heard the familiar roar of crashing bombs and the whirring of motors. Surely not in Damascus, one hundred and fifty miles from the battle zone! Through the window I saw a low flying plane about a half mile away, silhouetted faintly against the sun along the rim of the mountains fencing Damascus on the south. A small metallic object dropped from its belly; a powerful cloud of dust and timbers shot into the air. I became aware of two planes, not one. The one at my left was dropping bombs while moving toward the open desert, followed by the other...Hastily I dug out my camera, and from my window photographed history in the making -- the first Jewish bombing of Damascus -- catching two sets of dust clouds above the wreckage.

Ten minutes after the planes -- four-engine American bombers -- had disappeared into the desert, anti-aircraft guns shook the waking city. Shouting police halted traffic, shoved pedestrians into doorways, and helped spread panic, long after the planes had vanished...

...It was noon when I ventured out, heading in the direction of the Parliament, which obviously had been the target...Near by I saw a policeman guarding what seemed to be a garbage can. I went over to him, curious.

"This is an unexploded Jewish bomb!" he explained.

The bomb was, in fact, a garbage can, probably filled with scrap metal and dynamite and its lid soldered down. I saw no fuse. I had no idea what detonated these homemade affairs. I knew what I had seen: the ashcans hurtling to the ground became lethal block-busters when they struck. It occurred to me suddenly that this "dud" might well be a time bomb. I had no means of telling this to the policeman, so I got quickly away from there.

Psychologically, this terror raid by the Jews on Damascus had a more devasdtating effect than that on Amman. It have an entirely exaggerated view of Israel's strength. It cowed the Syrians, who had been given the impression they were winning decisively in Palestine. Had not their touted chieftain, Fawzy Bey el Kawoukjy, with a home in Damascus, proclaimed his personal victories? Arabs in the street couldn't get over the fact that the once lowly Jew -- four thousand of whom were cooped up in their Damascus ghetto, afraid to venture out -- had used four-engine bombers!