Daniel Colbert, Your uncle, Virgil Ranft, was my father. I was only 3 1/2 in May of 1945 and never knew my father. For a full description of that night in 1945 go to for an interesting scrapbook, which includes a picture of Virgil taken, we think, in San Francisco before she sailed for The south pacific. The USS Terror sight has a lot of personal anecdotes posted which you may find interesting.