Milo bombs the squadron

Milo Minderbinder's bombing of his own squadron on Pianosa is the novel's most extreme demonstration of how the logic of the syndicate—M & M Enterprises—can override every human bond, military duty, and moral scruple. The attack, carried out with planes and pilots from the very outfit Milo is supposed to serve, reduces comrades, tents, and fuel dumps to collateral damage in a business deal. It is the apotheosis of Milo's principle that "everybody has a share," revealing that share to be a license for unlimited destruction as long as the books balance.

Causes and Background

The bombing is not a spontaneous act of madness but the logical outcome of Milo's relentless expansion. Having secured freedom of passage for his planes across all battlefronts, Milo contracts with the American military to bomb the German-held highway bridge at Orvieto and simultaneously contracts with the German military to defend it with antiaircraft fire against his own attack. His fee from each side is the total cost of the operation plus six percent, and from Germany he also receives a merit bonus of a thousand dollars for every American plane shot down. Milo realizes a fantastic profit from both halves of the project for doing nothing more than signing his name twice. The dead man in Yossarian's tent, Mudd, is killed on that mission before he can even unpack his bags. This precedent—treating combat as a revenue stream—directly prepares the ground for the attack on Pianosa. Milo's syndicate is now in crisis: he has purchased the entire Egyptian cotton crop and cannot unload it. The mess halls in his syndicate refuse to be taxed per capita to absorb the loss. His cash reserves are draining away. A new contract with the Germans, this time to bomb his own outfit, offers a way to generate income and, more importantly, to demonstrate the power of the syndicate over any competing authority.

What Happens

One night, after a sumptuous evening meal, all of Milo's fighters and bombers take off, join in formation directly overhead, and begin dropping bombs on the group. The planes separate in a well-coordinated attack and bomb the fuel stocks, the ordnance dump, the repair hangars, and the B-25 bombers resting on the hardstands at the field. Milo's crews spare the landing strip and the mess halls so that they can land safely when their work is done and enjoy a hot snack before retiring. They bomb with their landing lights on, since no one is shooting back. They bomb all four squadrons, the officers' club, and the Group Headquarters building. Men bolt from their tents in sheer terror. Wounded soon lie screaming everywhere. A cluster of fragmentation bombs explodes in the yard of the officers' club, punching jagged holes in the side of the wooden building and in the bellies and backs of a row of lieutenants and captains standing at the bar. They double over in agony and drop. The rest of the officers flee toward the two exits in panic and jam up the doorways like a dense, howling dam of human flesh. Colonel Cathcart, clawing his way outside, stares up at the sky in stark astonishment and horror. Milo's planes, ballooning serenely in over the blossoming treetops with their bomb bay doors open and wing flaps down and with their monstrous, bug-eyed, blinding, fiercely flickering, eerie landing lights on, are the most apocalyptic sight he has ever beheld. He speeds toward the airfield, almost killing himself when he swerves to avoid plowing into a bunch of men running crazily toward the hills in their underwear. At the control tower, he seizes the microphone and shouts hysterically, "Milo, you son of a bitch! Are you crazy? What the hell are you doing? Come down! Come down!" Milo, standing right beside him in the control tower with a microphone of his own, replies calmly, "Stop hollering so much, will you? I'm right here." He then chants into his microphone, "Very good, men, very good. But I see one supply shed still standing. That will never do, Purvis—I've spoken to you about that kind of shoddy work before." When a pilot radios that he has finished dropping his bombs, Milo orders him to strafe. The pilot is shocked, but Milo explains, "We have no choice. It's in the contract."

Consequences and Aftermath

Bombing his own men and planes is more than even the most phlegmatic observer can stomach. High-ranking government officials pour in to investigate. Newspapers inveigh against Milo with glaring headlines, and Congressmen denounce the atrocity in stentorian wrath and clamor for punishment. Mothers with children in the service organize into militant groups and demand revenge. Not one voice is raised in his defense. Milo is all washed up until he opens his books to the public and discloses the tremendous profit he has made. He can reimburse the government for all the people and property he has destroyed and still have enough money left over to continue buying Egyptian cotton. Everybody, of course, owns a share. The sweetest part of the whole deal, Milo explains, is that there really is no need to reimburse the government at all. "In a democracy, the government is the people," he argues. "We're people, aren't we? So we might just as well keep the money and eliminate the middleman." He warns that paying the government would only encourage government control and discourage other individuals from bombing their own men and planes. Milo is correct, as everyone soon agrees but a few embittered misfits like Doc Daneeka, who sulks cantankerously until Milo mollifies him with a donation of a lightweight aluminum collapsible garden chair. The attack also has a direct, practical consequence: it creates a permanent state of fear. Every tent in the squadron is soon surrounded by slit trenches, dug by men who now know that the greatest danger may come from above, from their own side. The bombing cements Milo's power; he has proven that the syndicate's reach exceeds that of any commanding officer, and that profit can justify any act, no matter how destructive.