fire while Yossarian dropped the bombs. Another time while they were taking
evasive action Dobbs went crazy and started screaming "Help him," while the
plane spun out of control and Yossarian believed he was going to die. In
the back of the plane, Snowden was dying.
Chapters 6-10
Hungry Joe has his fifty missions, but the orders to send him home
never come, and he continues to scream all through every night. Doc Daneeka
persists in feeling sorry for himself while ignoring Hungry Joe's problems.
Hungry Joe is driven crazy by noises, and is mad with lust--he is desperate
to take pictures of naked women, but the pictures never come out. He
pretends to be an important Life magazine photographer, and the irony is
that he really was a photographer for Life before the war. Hungry Joe has
flown six tours of duty, but every time he finishes one Colonel Cathcart
raises the number of missions required before Hungry Joe is sent home. When
this happens, the nightmares stop until Hungry Joe finishes another tour.
Colonel Cathcart is very brave about sending his men into dangerous
situations--no situation is too dangerous, just as no ping-pong shot is too
hard for Appleby. One night Orr attacked Appleby in the middle of a game; a
fight broke out, and Chief White Halfoat busted Colonel Moodus, General
Dreedle's son-in-law, in the nose. General Dreedle enjoyed that so much he
kept calling Chief White Halfoat in to repeat the performance--but the
Indian remains a marginal figure in the camp, much like Major Major, who
was promoted to squadron commander while playing basketball and who has
been ostracized ever since. Also, Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen explains to
Yossarian how Catch-22 requires him to fly the extra missions Colonel
Cathcart orders, even though Twenty-Seventh Air Force regulations only
demand forty missions.
Yossarian's pilot, McWatt, is possibly the craziest of all the men,
because he is perfectly sane but he does not mind the war. He is smiling
and polite and loves to whistle show tunes. He is impressed with Milo--but
not as impressed as Milo was with the letter Yossarian got from Doc Daneeka
about his liver, which ordered the mess hall to give Yossarian all the
fresh fruit he wanted, which, in turn, Yossarian refused to eat, because if
his liver improved he couldn't go to the hospital whenever he wanted. Milo
is involved in the black market, and he tries to convince Yossarian to go
in with him in selling the fruit, but Yossarian refuses. Milo is indignant
when he learns that a C.I.D. (Criminal Investigation Division) man is
searching for a criminal who has been forging Washington Irving's name in
censored letters--it is Yossarian who used to pass time in the hospital by
writing the letters. But Milo is convinced the C.I.D. man is trying to set
him up because of his black market activity. Milo wants to organize the men
into a syndicate, as he demonstrates by returning McWatt's stolen bedsheet
in pieces--half for McWatt, a quarter for Milo, and so on. Milo has a grasp
on some confusing economics: he manages to make a profit buying eggs in
Malta for seven cents apiece and selling them in Pianosa for five cents
apiece.
Not even Clevinger understands that, but though he is a dope, he
usually understands everything, except why Yossarian insists that so many
people are trying to kill him. Yossarian remembers training in America with
Clevinger under Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who was obsessed with parades, and
whose wife, along with her friend Dori Duz, used to sleep with all the men
under her husband's command. Lieutenant Scheisskopf hated Clevinger, and
finally got him sent to trial under a belligerant colonel. Clevinger is
stunned when he realizes that Lieutenant Scheisskopf and the colonel truly
hate him, in a way that no enemy soldier ever could.
Given a horrible name at birth because of his father's horrible sense
of humor, Major Major Major was chagrined when, the day he joined the army,
he was promoted to Major by an IBM machine with an equally horrible sense
of humor, making him Major Major Major Major. Major Major Major Major also
looks vaguely like Henry Fonda, and did so well in school that he was
suspected of being a Communist and monitored by the FBI. His sudden
promotion stunned his drill sergeant, who had to train a man who was
suddenly his superior officer. Luckily, Major Major applied for aviation
cadet training, and was sent to Lieutenant Scheisskopf. Not long after
arriving in Pianosa, he was made squadron commander by an irate Colonel
Cathcart, after which he lost all his new friends. Major Major has always
been a drab, mediocre sort of person, and had never had friends before; he
lapses into an awkward depression and refuses to be seen in his office
except when he isn't there. To make himself feel better, Major Major forges
Washington Irving's name to official documents. He is confused about
everything, including his official relationship to Major ----- de Coverley,
his executive officer: He doesn't know whether he is Major ----- de
Coverlay's subordinate, or vice versa. A C.I.D. man comes to investigate
the Washington Irving scandal, but Major Major denies knowledge, and the
incompetent C.I.D. man believes him--as does another C.I.D. man who arrives
shortly thereafter, then leaves to investigate the first C.I.D. man. Major
Major takes to wearing dark glasses and a false mustache when forging
Washington Irving's name. One day Major Major is tackled by Yossarian, who
demands to be grounded. Sadly, Major Major tells Yossarian that there is
nothing he can do.
Clevinger's plane disappeared in a cloud off the coast of Elba, and he
is presumed dead. Yossarian finds the disappearance as stunning as that of
a whole squadron of sixty-four men who all deserted in one day. Then he
tells ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen the news, but ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen isn't
impressed with the disappearance. Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen continually goes
AWOL, then is required to dig holes and fill them up again--work he seems
to enjoy. One day ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen nicked a water pipe, and water
sprayed everywhere, leading to mass confusion much like that of the night
seven months later when Milo bombed the camp. Word spread that the water
was oil, and Chief White Halfoat was kicked off the base. Around this time,
Appleby tried to turn Yossarian in for not taking his Atabrine tablets, but
the only time he was allowed to go into Major Major's office was when Major
Major wasn't there. Yossarian remembers Mudd, a soldier who died
immediately after arriving at the camp, and whose belongings are still in
Yossarian's tent. The belongings are contaminated with death in the same
way that the whole camp was contaminated before the deadly mission of the
Great Big Siege of Bologna, for which Colonel Cathcart bravely volunteered
his men. During this time even sick men were not allowed to be grounded by
doctors. Dr. Stubbs is overwhelmed with cynicism, and asks what the point
is of saving lives when everyone dies anyway. Dunbar says that the point is
to live as long as you can and forget about the fact that you will
eventually die.
Chapters 11-16
Captain Black is pleased to hear the news that Colonel Cathcart has
volunteered the men for the lethally dangerous mission of bombing Bologna.
Captain Black thinks the men are bastards, and gloats about their
terrifying, violent task. Captain Black is extremely ambitious, and hoped
to be promoted to squadron commander; when Major Major was picked over him,
he lapsed into a deep depression, which the Bologna mission lifts him out
of. Captain Black first tried to get revenge on Major Major by initiating
the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade, when he forced all the men to swear
elaborate oaths of loyalty before doing basic things like eating meals. He
refused to let Major Major sign a loyalty oath, and hoped thereby to make
him appear disloyal. The Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a major event in
the camp, until the fearsome Major ----- de Coverley put a stop to it by
hollering "Give me eat!" in the mess hall without signing an oath.
It rains interminably before the Bologna mission, and the bombing run
is delayed by the rain. The men all hope it will never stop raining, and
when it does, Yossarian moves the bomb line on the map so that the
commanding officers will think Bologna has already been captured. Then the
rain starts again. In the meantime, Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen tries to sell
Yossarian a cigarette lighter, thus going into competition with Milo as a
black market trader. He is aghast that Milo has cornered the entire world
market for Egyptian cotton but is unable to unload any of it. The men are
terrified and miserable over Bologna. Clevenger and Yossarian argue about
whether it is Yossarian's duty to bomb Bologna, and by the middle of the
second week of waiting, everyone in the squadron looks like Hungry Joe. One
night Yossarian, Nately, and Dunbar go for a drunken drive with Chief White
Halfoat; they crash the jeep, and realize it has stopped raining. Back in
the tents, Hungry Joe is trying to shoot Huple's cat, which has been giving
him nightmares, and the men force Hungry Joe to fight the cat fairly. The
cat runs away, and Hungry Joe is the self-satisfied winner; then he goes
back to sleep and has another nightmare about the cat.
Major ----- de Coverley is a daunting, majestic man with a lion's mane
of white hair, an eagle's gaze, and a transparent eyepatch. Everyone is
afraid of him, and no one will talk to him. His sole duties include
travelling to major cities captured by the Americans and renting rooms for
his men to take rest leaves in; he spends the rest of his time playing
horseshoes. He is so good at his room- renting duties that he always
manages to be photographed with the first wave of American troops moving
into a city, a fact which perplexes both the enemy and the American
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