Explanation of The Character's Name
Orr may be a play on the word “oar”, as every time Orr flies a mission his plane is always damaged and he seems to be "up a creek without a paddle". Also he paddles his way to freedom in Sweden, using an oar, after practicing with a full crew.
The word orr means "nose" in Hungarian, in all means, e.g. human or animal nose, fuselage nose, bow of a ship's hull, etc. and it also can be used in structures as in "has a nose for", referring to one's smartness and adaptability.
It may also be a play on the word 'or', as in stay or leave, escape or die. Throughout most of the book, Orr is the only character who understands that this is even a choice; he spends most of his time either practicing for the chance to exercise his options (crashing repeatedly in the Mediterranean) or paddling to freedom after he crashes successfully. In the end, it appears that Orr's behaviour with the crabapples and other incidents were clues to indicate that Orr was the only character in the book who understood how to defeat the law of Catch-22.
Read more about this topic: Orr (Catch-22)
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