Command change

The command change that swept through the bomber group in the late autumn of the war was less a military transition than a farcical coup d'état, a reshuffling of ambitious incompetents that left the men no better off and their commanders no wiser. It began when General Dreedle, the blunt, barrel-chested wing commander who believed that young men should die for the ideals of old men, was finally pushed out. His replacement was General Peckem, the suave, self-regarding aesthete who had spent the war writing memoranda about bomb patterns and dreaming of capturing every bomber group in the U.S. Air Force. Peckem had schemed for years to absorb combat operations into his Special Service Corps, arguing that dropping bombs was a special service, and now, with Dreedle gone, he had his prize. He moved into Dreedle's office, confident that his elegant, Ivy League superiority had triumphed over the boorish old soldier.

The Triumph That Crumbles

Peckem's victory lasted only minutes. No sooner had he settled behind his new desk than a sergeant brought word of an order that had come in that morning: Colonel Scheisskopf, the parade-obsessed martinet from cadet school, had been promoted to lieutenant general and placed in charge of all combat operations. Peckem, who had always regarded Scheisskopf as a blockhead, was staggered. "Scheisskopf? A general?" he gasped, and then, with dawning horror, "Lieutenant general!" The promotion, he suspected, had been intended for him and given to Scheisskopf by mistake. But the truth was worse: Peckem's own relentless memoranda, his campaign to expand Special Services, had backfired. The Pentagon had simply transferred combat operations to Special Services, leaving Scheisskopf—who had never left that branch—in command. Peckem had outmaneuvered himself.

The New Order

Scheisskopf's first act as supreme commander was to demand that everyone march. He had been sent overseas against his will, promised that he could conduct parades, and now he intended to make good on that promise. "He wants us to march," Colonel Cargill reported, white-faced, after taking the call. "He wants everybody to march!" Peckem, who had just finished mocking Scheisskopf's obsession, was reduced to screaming for ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen, the mail clerk who had always manipulated the flow of information. But Wintergreen was shrieking with rage and panic himself, blaming Peckem's "goddam memorandums" for the disaster. The new chain of command was now complete: Scheisskopf at the top, Peckem and his colonels beneath him, and the combat men—Yossarian, Nately, Dunbar—still trapped in the middle, flying missions that kept rising while the generals played their games.

Consequences and Aftermath

The change meant nothing good for the men in Colonel Cathcart's group. Cathcart, who had curried favor with both Dreedle and Peckem, now had to please Scheisskopf, whose only measure of excellence was marching. The chaplain, who had been gathering courage to protest the rising mission count to General Dreedle, learned from Colonel Korn that Dreedle was out and Peckem was in. "Have you got any influence with him?" Korn taunted. The chaplain had none. The command change also sealed the fate of Dr. Stubbs, the flight surgeon who had been grounding men with sixty missions; Korn, knowing that Stubbs had been a thorn in their side, announced that he would be transferred to the Pacific. The new regime, far from offering relief, simply tightened the screw. The only person who seemed to benefit was Scheisskopf himself, who now had the power to cancel parades—a weekly announcement that there would be no parade this Sunday—and to issue orders that no one could ignore.