KHOUR, India, Dec. 11—Pakistani tanks and infantry launched, a massive attack last night across the shallow, sandy Munnawar Tawi River, leaving behind 600 of their own dead and about 300, Indian dead, Indian field commanders said here today.

The assault was the fifth this week by the Pakistanis in their effort to cross the Munnawar Tawi and capture the strategic Indian highway eight miles east, of the river that supplies Indian troops in western Kashmir.

Today the broad, dusty plain was littered with wrecked tanks, jeeps and trucks, and the bodies of several dozen Pakistanis lay where they had fallen along the river bank when the assault was beaten back.

A Front in 1965

Indian officers, who unofficially provided the casualty figures, said six Pakistani tanks had been destroyed, bringing the total number of Pakistani tanks reported knocked out during the week's fighting here to more than 50.

As they did in the 22‐day war in 1965, the Pakistanis have launched their major offensive, of the war here on the five-mile Munnawar Tawi front. But this time, the Indians seem to have been ready for them.

While the Pakistanis advanced across the river almost to the vital Jammu‐Poonch road in 1965, they have not been able to cross the river in their attack this week with a division of infantry and more than 150 tanks.

And the Indians have made a thrust of their own south of here in an area called the Chicken's Neck, capturing about 50 square miles of Pakistan territory.

“They came at us in a great mass, yelling and screaming,” Sgt. Jenagir Ram said, sighting along his 7.62mm. machine gun toward the Pakistan troops 500. yards across the river.

Relaxing in Foxhole

Sergeant Ram was in the front line last night when the attack came, and his unit lost several of its men. But today, during a lull in the righting, he was relaxing in his foxhole and listening to sitar music on his transistor radio.

The Indian general commanding the 10th Infantry Division —his name cannot be given for security reasons—admits that he has given up three miles of Indian territory on the west bank of the Munnawar Tawi, including the village of Chhamb. But he insists that it was a tactical withdrawal to put his troops In a better defensive position, and he denies that Chhamb is an important position, as Pakistani radio broadcasts have said.

“With Pakistanis on the hills to the north and south of us and the river behind us, we were in a bad spot,” the turbaned Sikh general explained. “But now we can hold on, and our boys have given the enemy a good bashing.”

Most of the small villages for 5 to 10 miles behind the front have been evacuated and their mud houses locked. But cows still graze untended in the dusty fields, just turning green with freshly planted winter wheat. The cattle do not seem disturbed by the almost continuous firing of Indian and Pakistani artillery and the occasional Indian jet that swoops low overhead for an attack oh the enemy line.

Few Air Raids

In the last three days Indian officers say, Pakistani jets have made only a few daytime raids Ion Indian forward positions. But today, this reporter on his way to the front 50 miles south of here was briefly strafed by a Pakistani Sabre jet.

Although the fighting has been heavy here all week, the war is still new for most Indian soldiers.

Today, when a big Soviet-made MI‐4 helicopter came into the forward field hospital to evacuate four wounded Indians, the soldiers carrying the stetchers did not know how to load them onto the helicopter. Momentarily confused, they dropped one of the wounded men, and he groaned as he hit the ground.

But with directions from a crowd of onlookers, they quickly picked him up and the helicopter lifted off.