I posted this in another thread a while back, but I'll post it here and tell the story.
The guy second from the right was my father. This picture was taken in 1945, probably in San Francisco, after his ship, the U.S.S. Terror, was attacked by a kamikaze plane while at anchor about 20 miles to the south of Okinawa (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Terror_(CM-5)#Kamikaze_attack,_1_May_1945 ). The attack happened on May 1, 1945 and left 41 dead, 7 missing and 123 wounded (in such a situation, I assume "missing" means dead but the body was never found). The ship was towed to Saipan and then back to San Francisco a month later. According to my brother, who was born four months after the attack, my father ended up pulling occupation duty in Sasebo, Japan, just north of Nagasaki before leaving the Navy. For a while, my brother (a Vietnam vet) attended reunions of the Terror's crew (since my father died in 1974, when I was 7).
A hearty cheers to all veterans!