Yossarian admits himself to a military hospital with a fabricated liver complaint to avoid flying dangerous combat missions.

Doc Daneeka explains the Catch-22 paradox: requesting to be grounded proves sanity, so no pilot can ever be declared unfit to fly.

Colonel Cathcart raises the required number of combat missions every time a pilot nears completion of the current quota.

Yossarian secretly alters the squadron's mission maps and poisons the food supply to delay the dangerous Bologna bombing mission.

Yossarian breaks his plane's radio mid-flight on the first Bologna run and orders the pilot to return to base early.

On the second Bologna mission, Yossarian serves as lead bombardier and the squadron faces heavy, unexpected German air defenses.

In Rome on leave, Yossarian sleeps with a woman named Luciana but then tears up her address and immediately regrets it.

Dobbs reveals a plan to assassinate Colonel Cathcart and asks Yossarian to help, but Yossarian refuses to get involved.

Milo accepts a contract from the Germans and bombs his own squadron's base, killing and wounding many of his own men.

McWatt flies too low over the beach and kills Kid Sampson, then deliberately crashes his plane into a mountain.

A combat mission kills twelve men including Nately and Dobbs after Cathcart raises the required mission count to eighty.

Military police arrest Chaplain Tappman and interrogate him about forged Washington Irving letters he did not write.

While wandering ruined Rome alone at night, Yossarian discovers that Aarfy has raped and murdered a woman and feels no remorse.

Colonel Cathcart and Korn offer Yossarian a deal: return home to the United States if he publicly praises their command.

After hearing that Orr survived and reached Sweden, Yossarian decides to desert the Army and flee to join him.

Yossarian, a bombardier desperate to survive World War II, checks himself into a military hospital to avoid dangerous missions and learns from Doc Daneeka that the military's Catch-22 makes it impossible to be grounded on psychiatric grounds. He delays the dreaded Bologna mission through sabotage but must fly it anyway, nearly dying when German air defenses prove far deadlier than expected. After brief relief in Rome with a woman named Luciana, the war darkens rapidly: Milo Minderbinder bombs his own base for profit, McWatt accidentally kills Kid Sampson and then destroys himself, and a fatal mission wipes out twelve men including Nately and Dobbs. Chaplain Tappman is wrongly arrested for forgeries, and Yossarian witnesses Aarfy commit murder without consequence in a ruined Rome before being dragged back to face Colonel Cathcart. Refusing to betray his fellow airmen by accepting a corrupt deal, Yossarian seizes on news that his missing friend Orr survived in Sweden and resolves to desert the Army entirely.

The core survival struggle from hospital to desertion.

A patriotic Texan patient annoys everyone in the hospital ward so thoroughly that they all voluntarily return to active duty.

Yossarian allows Milo Minderbinder to claim his fresh fruit rations, unknowingly providing Milo the foundation for his black-market operation.

A military intelligence officer arrives on the base to find the person forging names on censored letters but does not suspect Yossarian.

Clevinger disappears on a mission over the ocean and no trace of him or his plane is ever found.

Captain Black launches a Loyalty Oath Crusade to brand Major Major as a communist and strip him of any authority.

Milo takes Yossarian and Orr on supply runs across the Mediterranean, revealing the vast and improbable reach of his growing syndicate.

Yossarian gives Dobbs his blessing to kill Cathcart, only to find that Dobbs has already completed his missions and no longer cares.

Scheisskopf is promoted to colonel and transferred to General Peckem's staff, dismaying him because he cannot organize weekly parades.

Doc Daneeka is officially declared dead after his forged name appears on the flight manifest of McWatt's crashed plane.

Nately's long-indifferent sex worker suddenly and unexpectedly falls in love with him, finally returning his unrequited feelings.

Dunbar is deliberately disappeared by commanding officers after persistently complaining about the pointless and dangerous missions.

Chief White Halfoat checks himself into the hospital and successfully dies of pneumonia, exactly as he always announced he would.

General Peckem replaces General Dreedle as wing commander but immediately discovers that Scheisskopf has been promoted above him.

Yossarian begins marching backward in formation during parades, making his open refusal to fly any more combat missions public.

A sex worker disguised as an enlisted soldier stabs Yossarian as he exits Cathcart and Korn's office after accepting their deal.

A patriotic Texan drives all the hospital patients back to active duty, and life on the base becomes defined by overlapping absurdities: Milo Minderbinder uses Yossarian's fruit rations as the seed of a black-market empire, and a military intelligence officer hunts forged mail signatures without realizing Yossarian is the culprit. Clevinger vanishes on a mission and is never found, while Captain Black launches a Loyalty Oath Crusade to politically destroy Major Major, and Milo's syndicate expands across the Mediterranean as Yossarian and Orr travel with him. Dobbs's second attempt to recruit Yossarian into killing Cathcart collapses when Dobbs has already completed his missions, and the war claims characters through increasingly bizarre fates: Doc Daneeka is declared legally dead despite being alive, Dunbar is deliberately disappeared by his superiors, and Chief White Halfoat checks himself into a hospital and dies of pneumonia exactly as he always planned. Nately's sex worker finally falls in love with him just before his death, General Peckem displaces Dreedle only to find himself immediately outranked by the parade-obsessed Scheisskopf, and Yossarian's open defiance — marching backward in formation — ends with a disguised sex worker stabbing him outside Cathcart's office.

The supporting cast's fates and the base's unraveling order.

Chaplain Tappman visits Yossarian in the hospital ward and the two form an unexpected friendship amid the surrounding hostility.

Clevinger is put on trial and sentenced to ceremonial marches after Scheisskopf punishes him for suggesting democratic leadership.

Major Major Major Major is promoted to major by a military computer error before he finishes basic training, leaving him permanently isolated.

After the second Bologna mission, Orr's plane crash lands and Yossarian realizes with genuine surprise that he would have mourned Orr.

Yossarian pretends to be a dying Italian airman named Giuseppe so that the airman's visiting family does not make a wasted trip.

Milo corners the entire world supply of Egyptian cotton but cannot find any buyers, threatening the survival of his entire syndicate.

Nately argues with a cynical old Italian neighbor who insists that the only rational objective during wartime is simply to stay alive.

After the Avignon mission, Yossarian refuses to wear his blood-stained uniform and sits naked in a tree during Snowden's funeral service.

Yossarian and Dunbar swap hospital identities as a prank; the wrong man is accidentally discharged and sent back to the United States.

Orr discovers that Milo has replaced the life-raft inflation cylinders in the planes with notes claiming the syndicate benefits everyone.

Chaplain Tappman emerges from his arrest and interrogation with his faith unexpectedly stronger and more committed than it was before.

Yossarian informs Nately's sex worker that Nately has been killed, and she immediately attacks Yossarian with a potato peeler.

Hungry Joe is found dead in his sleep after Huple's cat sat on his face during the night.

In a full flashback, Yossarian relives opening Snowden's jacket during the mission and watching Snowden's insides fall out into his arms.

Yossarian rejects Cathcart and Korn's deal and tells the chaplain he refuses to betray the men still forced to fly missions.

Chaplain Tappman's visit to Yossarian in the hospital sparks a rare genuine friendship, while flashbacks to boot camp show how Clevinger was punished for idealism and Major Major was promoted by a computer error to a rank that only deepened his isolation. The second Bologna mission nearly kills Orr but reveals to Yossarian his genuine affection for his tentmate, and a hospital stay exposes Yossarian's talent for deception when he poses as a dying Italian airman for a grieving family who never suspects the truth. Milo's syndicate hits a crisis when he cannot sell his cornered Egyptian cotton supply, and Nately's debate with a cynical old Italian neighbor forces uncomfortable questions about whether the war has any real purpose. As violence closes in on all sides, the truth of Snowden's death is finally laid bare in full — Yossarian opens Snowden's jacket to find his insides — and after Chaplain Tappman emerges from wrongful imprisonment with his faith surprisingly renewed, Yossarian refuses Cathcart's corrupt offer and chooses moral integrity over a safe passage home.