Kraft
Kraft is a minor figure in Joseph Heller's Catch-22, yet his death reverberates through the novel as a stark emblem of the human cost exacted by military ambition and the arbitrary, senseless nature of wartime destruction. A skinny, harmless kid from Pennsylvania who wanted only to be liked, Kraft is killed on Yossarian's second bomb run over the bridge at Ferrara, an event that forever links his fate to Colonel Cathcart's quest for a feather in his cap and to Yossarian's own complicity in the machinery of death. His name recurs as a ghostly reminder of the lives traded for medals and promotions, and his obliteration—a "bleeding cinder on the barbarous pile"—stands in grim contrast to the bureaucratic and psychological games that preoccupy the living.
Identity and Background
Kraft is introduced with the barest of details, his identity defined almost entirely by his ordinariness and his desire for acceptance. He was a "skinny, harmless kid from Pennsylvania who wanted only to be liked," a description that underscores his innocence and his status as an everyman figure. His ambition was "humble and degrading": simply to be liked. This makes his violent end all the more jarring. He is one of the many faceless young men fed into the war machine, and his lack of distinguishing features—beyond his earnest, unassuming nature—makes him a representative of all the anonymous dead. He is a replacement pilot who arrived in the squadron just in time to be killed, a pattern that echoes the fate of Mudd, the dead man in Yossarian's tent.
Death Over Ferrara
Kraft's death occurs during the climactic mission to destroy the bridge at Ferrara, a target that had eluded Colonel Cathcart's group for seven straight days. Colonel Cathcart, having volunteered his men for the task, was desperate for a result. On the seventh day, Yossarian, as lead bombardier, took his flight of six planes in over the target a second time because Aarfy was confused and Yossarian had been unable to drop his bombs the first time. It was on this second, more dangerous bomb run that Kraft's plane was hit. Yossarian, looking up from his bombsight after releasing his own bombs, saw the plane with the burning engine directly above him and screamed to McWatt to turn left hard. A second later, the wing of Kraft's plane blew off. The flaming wreck dropped—first the fuselage, then the spinning wing—while a shower of tiny metal fragments began tap dancing on the roof of Yossarian's own plane. Kraft was "destined to be disappointed in even so humble and degrading an ambition" as being liked; instead, he was dead, "a bleeding cinder on the barbarous pile whom nobody had heard in those last precious moments while the plane with one wing plummeted." The mission succeeded—the bridge was destroyed—but at the cost of Kraft and his crew.
Narrative Role and Thematic Significance
Kraft's death serves multiple crucial functions in the novel. First, it is the direct catalyst for Yossarian's medal and promotion to captain, a perverse reward that Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn concoct to cover up the disaster. Colonel Cathcart is initially horrified by the loss of a plane and crew, worrying about how it will look on the report. Colonel Korn suggests giving Yossarian a medal "for going around twice," reasoning that "it did take a lot of courage to go over that target a second time with no other planes around to divert the antiaircraft fire." This cynical manipulation transforms a tragedy into a public relations victory, establishing the pattern of rewarding actions that should be condemned. Second, Kraft's death is a recurring source of guilt for Yossarian. Yossarian "felt guilty each time he remembered Kraft, guilty because Kraft had been killed on Yossarian's second bomb run, and guilty because Kraft had got mixed up innocently also in the Splendid Atabrine Insurrection." This guilt is part of the larger burden Yossarian carries, a weight that includes Snowden's death and the deaths of so many others. Third, Kraft's fate illustrates the novel's central theme of the absurd and arbitrary nature of death in war. He is killed not by a direct hit on his own plane but by a chain of events set in motion by Colonel Cathcart's ambition, Aarfy's incompetence, and Yossarian's own decision to go around again. He is a victim of circumstance, a "skinny, harmless kid" who wanted only to be liked and instead became a "bleeding cinder." His death is a stark reminder that in the world of Catch-22, the innocent and the well-meaning are just as likely to be destroyed as anyone else, and that the system that sends them to their deaths is indifferent to their humanity.
