Ferdinand Waldo Demara

Ferdinand Waldo Demara: The Great Impostor Who Operated at Sea

In October 1951 the captain of a Canadian destroyer off the coast of Korea received a signal for his eyes only. His medical officer, it said, might be an impostor. He was. Surgeon-Lieutenant Joseph Cyr of the Royal Canadian Navy was in fact Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr., an American who had never finished high school, never studied medicine, and had borrowed the name and credentials of a real doctor in New Brunswick. On that ship he had operated on wounded men, working from textbooks. It was the most dangerous role in a life spent wearing other people's names: monk, dean of philosophy, co-founder of a college, prison officer, schoolteacher. A bestselling book called him the Great Impostor. The title stuck because it was earned.

A Runaway From Lawrence

Demara was born in December 1921 in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the son of a French-Canadian father and an Irish-American mother. He left school without a diploma. At 16 he ran away to a Trappist monastery in Rhode Island, lied about his age, and stayed two years before the monks decided he was not suited to the life. The pattern was set early: arrive, impress, leave.

The Brothers of Charity sent him to a home in West Newbury, Massachusetts, where he taught fourth grade. He broke with the order, took a car that was not his, and enlisted in the Army. Over the next decade he would enter, and walk out of, a remarkable list of Catholic houses: the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky, New Subiaco Abbey in Arkansas, the Clerics of Saint Viator in Chicago, the Order of St. Camillus in Milwaukee, the Paulist novitiate in New Jersey and more. He rarely stayed long.

Two Uniforms, Two Desertions

His Army service began in 1941. He walked away from it under a borrowed name, Anthony Ignolia. He then joined the Navy and trained in its hospital corps. When that life soured, he staged his own suicide and disappeared. In 1946 the FBI caught up with him. Convicted of deserting the Navy in wartime, he was sentenced to six years and served 18 months, leaving prison in 1948.

Dr. French, Dean of Philosophy

Between the desertions and the arrest he had already found the role that showed what he could do. As Dr. Robert Linton French, he taught at Gannon College in Erie, Pennsylvania, and rose to dean of its School of Philosophy. He had no degree. He had an extraordinary memory and the confidence to stand at a lectern. His biographer, Robert Crichton, would later credit that memory for much of what he pulled off.

Brother John Builds a College

In 1949, presenting himself as Dr. Cecil Hamann, he joined the Brothers of Christian Instruction in Alfred, Maine, and took the religious name Brother John. He threw himself into helping the order found a junior college, LaMennais College. That institution later moved to Ohio and in 1960 became Walsh College, today Walsh University. It is the most durable thing Demara ever built under a false name. Along the way he befriended a physician from Grand Falls, New Brunswick, Dr. Joseph Cyr. In 1951 he left the order, taking Cyr's credentials with him.

Surgeon-Lieutenant Cyr

Canada was at war in Korea and short of doctors. In March 1951 "Dr. Cyr" walked into the naval recruiting office in Saint John, New Brunswick, and was commissioned a Surgeon-Lieutenant within days. After a posting at the naval hospital near Halifax, he joined the destroyer HMCS Cayuga at Esquimalt, British Columbia, on 15 June 1951 and sailed for the ship's second tour in Korean waters. He pulled the captain's infected tooth. Then, after a raid on Korea's west coast, three seriously wounded South Korean fighters were brought aboard. Working from textbooks, with his sick-berth attendant beside him and a good supply of antibiotics, he removed a bullet from one man's chest and amputated another's foot. All three survived.

Fact and Legend on the Cayuga

The story grew in the telling. Later retellings credited him with 16 or 17 operations, every one a success. Crew recollections and the naval museum at Esquimalt describe three seriously wounded men, the tooth, and routine sick-bay care. A fact sheet by a retired Canadian naval captain notes that some contemporaries claim the surgeries never took place. What is not in dispute: an untrained man held the medical lives of a warship's crew in his hands for months, and the wounded men could not know who was treating them.

Unmasked by a Mother's Newspaper

Fame undid him. Newspapers in Canada ran the story of the destroyer's surgeon, and it reached the real Dr. Cyr's mother, then the real Dr. Cyr. In October 1951 the signal reached Cayuga. Demara locked himself in his cabin for three days, then surrendered. The navy chose not to prosecute. He was released with back pay and handed to U.S. immigration at the border at Blaine, Washington. In 1952 he sold his story to *Life* magazine.

Selling the Story, Then Living It Again

Publicity did not cure him. In the mid-1950s, as Ben W. Jones, he took a job at the state prison in Huntsville, Texas, and rose to run its maximum-security wing, until an inmate recognised him from the *Life* article. He fled. By September 1956 he was teaching English as Martin Godgart at the high school on North Haven, an island off Maine. Suspicious islanders lifted his fingerprints from a beer glass. Maine State Police arrested him on 14 February 1957, and he pleaded guilty to cheating by false pretenses. Asked why he did it, he reportedly answered: "Rascality, pure rascality."

The Last Act in Anaheim

Robert Crichton's bestselling book made him famous in 1959; Demara himself thought it inaccurate. He appeared on Groucho Marx's *You Bet Your Life* and played a hospital surgeon in a 1960 horror film. In 1967 he earned a graduate certificate in Bible studies from Multnomah Bible College, and he later served, under his own name, as a chaplain at Good Samaritan Hospital in Anaheim, California. In November 1980 he ministered to the dying actor Steve McQueen. Diabetes cost him both legs. He died of heart failure in Anaheim on 7 June 1982, aged 60.

On Screen and in Print

• The Great Impostor (1959), Random House, by Robert Crichton; the bestselling biography that fixed his nickname.
• The Hypnotic Eye (1960), Allied Artists feature film; Demara himself appears in a small role as a hospital surgeon.
• The Great Impostor (1961), Universal-International feature film, directed by Robert Mulligan; Tony Curtis plays Demara.

Why Ferdinand Waldo Demara Is Called a Genius

Because the ability was real. With no diploma, he absorbed enough learning to serve as a college dean, enough administration to help found a college that still exists, enough penology to run a maximum-security wing, and enough medicine to treat three badly wounded men at sea, all of whom survived. His memory, his speed of learning and his reading of people were exceptional. That is why he appears on Geniuses.club. It is also why his story is a warning, not a tribute. He stole the identity of a real doctor, Joseph Cyr, and put his name to procedures Cyr never performed. He deserted his country's forces in wartime. He took charge of prisoners, students and a warship's sick bay without the training those people had every right to expect. The men on the Cayuga's operating table survived; they had no say in who held the knife. Talent explains how he fooled so many institutions. It excuses none of it.

Achievements

• With no medical training, he served as ship's surgeon on the Canadian destroyer HMCS Cayuga off Korea in 1951, removing a bullet from one wounded fighter's chest and amputating another's foot; all thr
• Took the name and credentials of a real physician, Dr. Joseph Cyr of Grand Falls, New Brunswick, and was commissioned in the Royal Canadian Navy within days.
• Without a degree, rose to dean of the School of Philosophy at Gannon College in Erie, Pennsylvania, as 'Dr. Robert Linton French'.
• As Brother John of the Brothers of Christian Instruction, helped found LaMennais College in Maine, which became today's Walsh University in Ohio.
• As 'Ben W. Jones', rose to run the maximum-security wing of the Texas state prison at Huntsville until an inmate recognised him from Life magazine.
• Convicted of deserting the U.S. Navy in wartime, he was sentenced to six years and served 18 months.
• Arrested on 14 February 1957 while teaching English on North Haven island, Maine, as 'Martin Godgart'; he pleaded guilty to cheating by false pretenses.
• His life inspired Robert Crichton's 1959 bestseller The Great Impostor and the 1961 film starring Tony Curtis.
• Later served under his own name as a hospital chaplain in Anaheim, California, and ministered to the dying Steve McQueen in 1980.