The POW Books, "The Special Prisoner" and "Day'

I am currently reading two novels about young men that were POWs in WW2. One is The Special Prisoner written by Jim Lehrer of PBS new hour fame. He tells the story of a man that in the last days of WW2 is shoot down over Japan and spends the last days of the war as a prisoner. After the war he becomes Methodist bishop and as a change encouther with an Japanese officer from the camp. The main character is now retired and in is 70's but he has hated this Japanese officer for the brutal treatment he handed out to the prisoners. In the other novel Day by A.J. Kennedy an English working class young man is shoot down over Germany and spends the war in a POW camp. The main character takes a job as a movie extra after the war, for a movie about a POW German prison camp. Of course there is lots of description of the experince of being in a POW camp. Side note it would be far better to be in a German camp then a Japanese camp. But the real theme of the books is about forgiving, the struggle to forgive. Another theme is about war crimes and vengeance. The retired Methodist bishop has to face the dark side of his soul, his hater but he also to come to grips that he fire bombed Japanese cities and those raids killed thousands of Japanese citizens. Forgiveness is a nice and wonderful idea exect when you really have to do it and what is in the way of you forgiving is your own hate, anger, believe that you have the right to kill.

An important theme, Michael! Do the two characters (the Methodist bishop in The Special Prisoner and the working class Englishman in Day) have a similar journey toward forgiveness, or are there differences in the way they come to it? Was it easier for the man who had been in the German camp to forgive his captors, since the treatment in the camps there had been less brutal? The hatred of a prisoner for his captors would be very personal. On the other hand, the Nazi death camps were a crime against humanity that might seem to outweigh the Japanese war crimes, so perhaps it would be easier for the man who had been a prisoner of the Germans to cling to his hatred out of a sense of self-righteousness.

When did the struggle to forgive begin? Did either of these men think about it before their release?

This is a very intriguing comparison.

Margad, sorry for the delay in responsing to your post. The two main characters once you take away the outside world have a very similar path, the path to forgiveness is inward for both. Both of them must face there own hate, anger, and emotional pain.The character learns the value of forgiveness in some easier then the Methodist bishop, because he had a longer patch. I know that does make sense, but the bishop had a better education, a better enviroment, more support but at times those things got in the way of him facing himself. He had more hiding places the character in Day was more naked. Both books are so very rich.

It's so interesting that the bishop's support, education, etc. were sometimes more of a hindrance than a help.

To me, there's something reassuring in two very different men (whose journeys to forgiveness were described by two different authors) taking such similar paths. It tells me how much people really do have in common, despite our differences, and how basic our need to forgive is.