Chapter 3: Havermeyer

In Chapter 3 of Catch-22, Orr tells Yossarian a nonsensical story about stuffing crab apples in his cheeks when he was younger. Yossarian reflects on Orr's size, and remembers an episode in Rome where Orr was beaten by a whore. Hungry Joe, who lives near Yossarian's tent, has nightmares when he is not scheduled to fly a mission the next day, and his screaming keeps the whole camp awake.

The men sometimes pick up girls and take them to the tall grass near an open-air movie theater, which has been visited by a U.S.O. troupe sent by General P. P. Peckem, who hopes to take over Yossarian's unit. Peckem's troubleshooter, Colonel Cargill, used to be a marketing executive paid to fail at marketing so that Wall Street firms could establish tax losses, and now fails at bringing enthusiasm to the men. Some of the men have finished their 50 missions and anxiously hope their orders to return home arrive before Colonel Cathcart raises the number of missions again.

Yossarian feels sick, but Doc Daneeka refuses to ground him and advises Yossarian to emulate Havermeyer, a fearless bombardier. The narrator notes that Havermeyer likes to shoot mice and once woke Hungry Joe with a shot that compelled him to dive into a slit trench. These trenches appeared mysteriously beside every tent the morning after the mess officer Milo Minderbinder bombed the squadron.