My battle station was in a 5th deck magazine packed with high explosives well below the water line. I felt very safe and secure in my steel cocoon. The real heroes were those who worked on the flight deck, exposed to the weather with nothing between them and the enemy but a few layers of cloth.
I read a story about Guadalcanal, and there was a US Navy destroyer offshore, being frantically signaled by a group of Marines. They weren't sure if it was real or a trick by the Japanese, but they sent a boat ashore and picked up a party of Marines that had been out there, trapped behind enemy lines, and eventually somewhat surrounded by the Japanese on land with their back to the sea. The leader of that group was Chesty Puller. Here is the write up from some web site on it:
"...Shortly after arriving on Guadalcanal, Puller led his battalion in fierce fighting along the Matanikau River. During the engagement, three of Puller's companies were surrounded and cut off from American forces by Japanese troops. Puller ran to the shore, signaled a U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Monssen, and directed the ship to provide covering fire while landing craft rescued the surrounded Marines. During the rescue, U.S. Coast Guard Signalman First Class Douglas Albert Munro, Officer-in-Charge of the group of landing craft, was killed while providing covering fire for the Marines and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions, making him the first, and to date the only, Coast Guardsman to receive the decoration. Puller's quick thinking in organizing the rescue saved the three companies and earned Puller the Bronze Star with Combat "V"..."
The reason I bring this up, was when they got Puller and some of the Marines on the destroyer (to direct fire in support of the Marines ashore) they were in tough shape, having been in continuous combat with little food or rest, so they sailors treated them like royalty with food and clean clothes where they could get them. In the discussion, the Captain of the Monssen asked them if they wanted to stay aboard for another day or two, and Puller and the Marines declined politely. The Captain said to the Marines something to the effect of "I don't know how you can do it, living under those conditions, people firing at you, living in the mud..."
Puller and the Marines looked surprised, and responded something like "Heck. We don't know how you sailors do it. We Marines always know where we are and have our feet on the ground, we can hunker down in a hole...you guys on the ships, you never know where you are, and if someone fires at you, there is no place to go!" while all the Marines nodded in assent!