a million bureaucrats are diligently plotting death (GR Part 1, Section 3)

[jbor at bigpond.com]

... and some of them even know it. (17)

Brief section follows Teddy Bloat into Slothrop's and Tantivy's cubicle 
at ACHTUNG after the Banana Breakfast at Pirate's maisonette described 
in the previous sections. Bloat's mission: to photograph Tyrone's star 
map of London with his "midget spy-camera".

Lists and more lists. Basically, Pynchon is setting the scene for our 
introduction to Slothrop in the next section. But we do learn that 
Bloat is also working for "the Firm", that Tantivy isn't, and that 
Slothrop has been looking at "rocket-bomb disasters" since "last 
autumn", i.e. a couple of months.

"In August 1944, Londoners thought the war might be over by Christmas. 
But on September 8, 1944, in the London suburb of Chiswick, a 
thunderous double-boom was heard followed by a huge plume of black 
smoke rising high into the air. Moments later another explosion rocked 
the earth near Epping. There had been no warnings, no drone of aircraft 
above, just sudden devastation. Operation Penguin, the V-2 offensive, 
had begun. [...]"

_V-2: A Combat History of the First Ballistic Missile_,  by T. D. 
Dungan, Westholme, Pennsylvania, Sept. 2005.

http://www.v2rocket.com/

best