Captain Walker was shot down at the end of 1944 or the beginning of 1945. How is it possible that he did come home after six years in 1951? Even if he had a lengthy treatment of his wounds in hospital, his wife would have been informed.
shareIn the lyric. He is missing presumed dead.
Have a look at this thread - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073812/board/nest/128122537?p=2
If Captain Walker was in a German POW camp he would have been liberated and returned to England by mid 1945. Only POWs from the German Army were held prisoner by the Russians until the fifties.
shareIt's a bit of a hiccup in the adaptation. The original album had Captain Walker a World War One veteran, with 1921 being the year of his return. But the story's style seemed more of the sixties than the thirties, when Tommy would have had his ministry. (Can you see a pinball-playing spiritual leader of a way-out cult during the thirties?)
The movie switched it to World War II, but that produced the discrepancy you mention.
The musical resolved this very nicely...1946 was the year of the Captain's return, and "twenty-one is gonna be a good year" is a reference to Mrs. Walker's twenty-first birthday. (She's a YOUNG bride and mother in this version.)
Call me a sucker for coincidences that might rather be more my lively imagination than a coincidence, but when I saw Mad Max in Thunderdome and he winds up with all those kids calling him Capt. Walker, am I the only one to think of THIS Capt. Walker?
"Go back to your oar, Forty One."
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This is a nightmare that Tommy has.
Otherwise, Oliver Reed would have gone to jail for murder. Ditto Ann-Margret for helping him. And Tommy would have hated them both forever.
But none of those things happened. Therefore, it was all a dream. A psychologically prescient one, of course.
Ah, but how could Frank murder a man who is already dead? And Frank looks the type who could easily get rid of a body.
Tommy shuts off all knowledge of this event, and for the next several years his mother loves him and cares for him, and tries to help him - why should he hate her?
No, it's not a dream. Using the "Then the little boy fell out of bed and woke up" trope is just silly here. It took a father-murdered sized trauma to induce the psychosomatic release from sensory input. Not a dream at all.
You wonder why he got angry that his wife moved on after all these years.
It's that man again!!
The whole thing doesn't completely make sense, but perhaps Captain Walker's wife, Nora, thought he was in a mental institution. Then he broke out, somehow got his own military uniform or a substitute one, burst into the house and scared the crap out of everybody. Agreed, Nora and Frank would have to get rid of the body, and Tommy couldn't handle the whole situation.
More detailed theory here: https://moviechat.org/tt0073812/Tommy/58c731445ec57f0478f6e06a/Why-was-the-father-away-for-5-YEARS?reply=5c27899b95f9c50fcbca15e2