The early chapters satirize the military and political establishment, specifically through distortions of logic and reality. Earlier in the summer, when an apparently hazardous raid on Bologna seems imminent, for example, Yossarian postpones the mission by simply moving a line on a map, indicating that the Americans and other Allies have already captured the city. Although war and death are always in the background, the tone of the first third of the novel is ironic and absurdly light-hearted.
The tone changes with flashbacks to raids on Ferrara, Bologna, and Avignon. At Ferrara, in the spring of 1944, Yossarian is an inexperienced bombardier eager to succeed in the mission so it will not be repeated. Having failed to release his bombs on the first run, Yossarian directs his flight to take a second pass so that he can hit the target, a bridge that the squadron has tried in vain to destroy for a week. The tactic works, but a young airman named Kraft is killed. Although Yossarian is promoted to Captain and awarded a medal, the death haunts him. When the squadron eventually must bomb Bologna a second time, in late June 1944, the flak (ground fire at the aircraft) is exceptionally intense. Heller's description of the raid (Chapter 15) is one of the most vivid passages in the novel. By now, Yossarian has had all he wants of war. His tent mate, Orr, is shot down and presumed lost at sea. The mission over Avignon, in July, is personally even more traumatic for Yossarian as his plane is badly hit and a gunner named Snowden severely wounded. Heller repeatedly refers to the event throughout the novel, playing it like a recurring theme in a symphony, the reader allowed to learn a little more of the horror as the story progresses. (The novel's first scene occurs shortly after the raid on Avignon.)
Leaves of absence in Rome allow respite for the men and a change of tone for the reader. Here the men initially find romance, parties, frolic, and joy. Yossarian's brief affair with a young woman named Luciana is one of the more poignant interludes, although we soon are reminded that Yossarian's relations with women are troubled at best. Nately argues patriotism with a 107-year-old cynic at a bordello, one of the novel's several debates concerning values. But Rome, too, is altered by the war, as Yossarian learns in the closing chapters.
