The life of submariners is not all that comfortable from what we've heard. That's according to modern standards as well, on those big nuclear-powered submarines. Can you imagine what life was like in a World War 2 era submarine? Probably extremely uncomfortable and miserable right? Well, probably unless you were on the submarine commanded by the subject of today's story. Roy Milton Davenport made a name for himself by sending ships down to the deep dark salty abyss.For his first party trick, good ol' Roy had been pissed off for quite some time at the Japanese for their attack on Pearl Harbor, so unseen and unheard his boat went down below the salty spray of the sea and started hunting enemy ships. Man, was he good at it! In his first patrol, despite being hunted himself Roy Milton Davenport pressed his men and boat aggressively. The result of this? He sunk of 5,500 tons of shipping and damaged over 35,000 tons (corrected scores). So while everyone else was shooting at him, all by himself, Davenport and his crew were scoring hits on the enemy.

Let's take a moment to really understand what being hunted as a submariner really entails. You're in a long metal tube under the sea, with very little chance for escape if you're hit. You have to rely on sonar to tell you where the guys shooting at you were, 1940's era sonar, not the highly advanced stuff we have today. Have you seen what depth charges do to submarines? They royally ruin their day.

So during all of the depth charge dropping and furious scrape to find Roy Milton Davenport and the crew of the USS Haddock, he was wreaking his own brand of havoc on the enemy. For this action, he was awarded his first Navy Cross.Read more stories of American Grit here:

JAMES SHAW JR.: A BIAS FOR ACTION

THURGOOD MARSHALL: JUSTICE

RICHARD GANNON: HEROISM IN HUSAYBAH