NEW YORK (AP) ? Pre-dawn gunshots in the Olympic Village. Muffled shouts as Palestinian terrorists burst into an apartment and seize Israeli athletes. A corpse tossed onto the sidewalk as a macabre calling card and another sportsman bleeds to death. All prelude to a horrifying massacre hours later.

These tragic events of the 1972 Summer Games are recalled in ?Munich,? Steven Spielberg?s new film about Israeli hit squads avenging their compatriots? deaths. The assault at the Olympic Village, which affected so many lives and still triggers disturbing flashbacks, heralded a ruthless new brand of international terrorism.

From the moment the raid began at 5 a.m. on September 5, 1972, to the shootout during a botched rescue at a suburban airfield around midnight, this traumatic incident violated every norm of common sense and decency. Moreover, full details of the debacle have never been revealed.

The story of the Munich disaster has many strands and the scenario haunts witnesses to this day.

As the Olympics approached, West Germany viewed the games as an atonement of sorts for its Nazi past and a showcase for its postwar democracy and booming economy. Munich built the world?s most lavish sports facilities, topped by the Olympic stadium?s fantasy roof of draped gossamer.

In the face of prevailing world tensions, security was naively low key. The Cold War raged, with NATO and Warsaw Pact forces facing off across divided Germany. Spying was rampant. Vietnam War protests roiled cities, and the Red Army Faction, a gang of anarchist bombers, held West Germans in thrall.

For the first 10 days, the Summer Games were a spectacular success. Athletes like Mark Spitz, Olga Korbut, Lasse Viren, Shane Gould and Ulrike Meyfarth made headlines. Then the security plan ? stringent at the venues, light at the athletes? village ? was exploited. Eight Black September guerrillas ? wielding automatics and grenades they?d stored in lockers at the Munich railway station ? climbed the unguarded, two meter perimeter fence shortly before 5 a.m. and forced their way into the Israeli quarters.

Peter Gehrig, a reporter for The Associated Press, was rousted at 6 a.m. from the nearby press quarters and sent to cover the action. ?I got inside very early in the morning with a group of US swimmers coming back from the morning training session. Their hair was wet and tousled, so was mine after having just fallen out of bed. I just pretended to chat with them, turning my ID badge around so not to give me away as a journalist. The guards were still rather lenient at 6:30 a.m. They sealed the place half an hour after that.?

AP photographers took up positions in the Puerto Rican quarters overlooking the standoff at Connollystrasse, where the terrorists threatened to execute their nine remaining hostages. Pictures, now famous, showed the hooded guerrillas peeking from the Israeli quarters, or negotiating with German officials on the walkway out front.

It was a surreal scene as athletes, not fully comprehending the life-and-death situation, went about their business and competitions continued at nearby venues, as Olympic officials tried to minimis the attack.

Gehrig recalled how officials ?hustled back and forth negotiating, and police kept the area cordoned off. Around village square and in the athletes? cafeteria, life went on pretty much normal. Many sports people didn?t get on to what was happening until early afternoon when events were cancelled. Music would come from the loudspeakers, people would chat and only slowly it sank in that other people?s lives were at stake.?

Most journalists ? myself included ? couldn?t get closer than the chain-link fence, now suddenly under guard by a phalanx of police. When word leaked out late in the afternoon about plans for safe passage for the terrorists and their hostages, I staked out Munich airport, but there was no sign of preparations and I returned by evening. My biggest challenge came the day after, reconstructing the chaos from the sketchy accounts of German and Olympic authorities.

At one point, German police disguised in warm-up suits took up positions on the flat roofs of the athletes? quarters next to the besieged Israeli quarters, probing for a way inside. Incredibly, television broadcast the action live, and the mission had to be aborted because authorities realised that the gunmen could watch the broadcasts.

The terrorists wanted to swap their hostages for more than 200 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. But Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir ruled out a trade in keeping with Israel?s hard line with Palestinian extremists. Egypt also refused to allow a Lufthansa airliner to fly the gunmen and hostages to Cairo, as demanded by the gunmen. But the terrorists weren?t told this by German negotiators.

A desperate plan was devised to get the eight gunmen and nine hostages out of the Olympic Village at night. They would be flown by helicopter to the German military air base at suburban Fuerstenfeldbrueck, 16 kilometres to the west, ostensibly to board a Lufthansa airliner for a flight to the Mideast.

Ulrich Wegener, West Germany?s top anti-terrorism expert, wanted to overpower the gunmen in a parking lot underneath the Village, during the short bus ride to the two helicopters. But police said it was too dangerous.

The tragedy culminated in a shockingly inept night-time ambush at the airfield:

Five Bavarian police sharpshooters in the control tower and near the tarmac were told to shoot the gunmen when they emerged from the helicopters, but they lacked sniperscopes, night vision goggles and radio contact among themselves. Also, they were told to expect four or five terrorists, instead of the eight in the group.

Armoured vehicles that could have overrun the terrorists when the helicopters landed around 10:30 p.m. were slowed on roads crammed with curiosity seekers alerted by news broadcasts. The vehicles didn?t arrive until after the gunmen had shot out airport lights to hide their positions.

Police stationed in the Boeing 727 airliner to overpower the terrorists when they boarded got cold feet and fled.

The ambush began when two Palestinian gunmen inspecting the plane found no one aboard. Suspecting a trap, they ran back toward the helicopters and shooting broke out. During the firefight, the terrorists tossed a hand grenade into one helicopter, killing four of the bound hostages in the blast and flames, and raked the second helicopter with automatic fire, killing the five other Israelis.

The final death toll was 11 Israeli team members, five Palestinians and a German policeman.

Three Palestinians survived and were captured at the scene. Within two months they were sprung from German jails in response to demands by other Palestinians who hijacked another Lufthansa jetliner.

This horrific event, with the whole world watching, was defined by a long litany of blunders. And, yet, one remains most etched in memory. After the shooting erupted, the German government spokesman at the Munich Press Centre, Conrad Ahlers, told us that all the hostages had been rescued. The news was flashed around the world. Newspapers headlined the happy ending. But in the early hours of September 6, the awful truth was revealed. All the hostages had been killed.