William C. Specht was the commander at the PT training school in Melville, Rhode Island when Jack was transferred to learn PT boat seamanship from his billet at Northwestern.
He was a graduate of the Naval Academy who had seen action at Pearl Harbor . He was appointed to command the Melville facility upon it’s opening in March, 1942. He was responsible for both the construction of the physical campus and the development of the curricula. The sailors and officers who completed training at Melville often joked that they had graduated from “Specht Tech.”
Specht was awarded the Legion Merit by the US Navy in March, 1944 for his efforts in spearheading the development and training of the PT cadre
[Blair, p. ???]
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