Anguished cries echo up through the
metallic hallways of the HMCS Cayuga.
Shivers tickle up a man’s spine as he
ransacks his bookshelves, searching.
He skitters through the dark and gloomy room, the only
light streaking in through a single dingy porthole.
Someone bangs on the door to his office, pleading that he hurry up.
Hot sweat trails down his forehead as
he finds the book he’s looking for.
He cracks it open, flipping through the pages, scanning
each one desperately committing them to memory.
Below him, over a dozen injured men lie
in pools of their own cooling blood.
The hulking man emerges from a nearby hallway,
and sets out to work immediately, sewing up guts,
reinflating lungs, and yanking out pieces of shrapnel.
He’d hoped it would never come to this.
He’d done everything he could to avoid actually operating on
anyone, but now that he was here, there were no other options.
In the fog of war, when you’re laying on the cold deck of a military
ship, and can feel your body growing colder by the minute, you don’t
ask the doctor who comes to save you if he passed all his exams.
You don’t wonder if he is who he says he is.
How would you feel if you learned that the man
you’d just entrusted your life to was an impostor?
That he’d only learned how to perform your
surgery a few minutes ago from a manual?
How does a fraud end up as the only surgeon
of a Canadian Royal Navy ship in wartime?
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March 1951.
Dr. Joseph Cyr, boarding a bus in Boston heading north for St.
John, New Brunswick, newly acquired documents in hand,
was anxious to present himself to the Royal Canadian Navy.
When he finally arrived at the recruitment office,
he was tired, hungry, and nearly out of cash, but
he straightened his back and announced, “I am Dr.
Joseph Cyr of this province and I feel it is my duty, now that we are
again in war, to volunteer my services where they can be of most help.”
The war in Korea had been waging for the last year, a conflict
that would continue to eventually take the lives of over 5 million
people, and Joe knew that the recruiter sitting at the desk in front
of him would be in no position to turn away a qualified doctor.
In fact, Joe was immediately whisked away to Ottawa,
Canada’s capital and questioned, interestingly enough,
not on his medical knowledge, but on whether or not he
would use his position to experiment on wounded seamen.
Satisfied that he would not practice unethically, Joe was
sent back to St John where measurements were taken for
his uniform, before his trip to Halifax to begin work.
The other doctors there were cool and distant to him, but he
later learned that it was only because they thought he was
Quebecois, and spoke French while they all spoke English.
It turns out English and French people dislike one
another not only in Europe, but all over the planet.
Joe was eventually transferred to the HMCS Magnificent in Halifax.
One day, while strolling through the streets and alleyways of
Halifax, the quiet din of Dartmouth Town across the harbour
and under the shadow of the citadel, he saw a woman sitting
quietly among the daffodils and dandelions of a local park.
Joe knelt down, plucked a dandelion, and while looking
into the eyes of the young woman, struck up a conversation.
“We used to play that if you could blow all the
fluff off a dandelion you got your wish” said Joe.
“We used to say it meant you were in love,” she replied.
“No, no.” He chided, “You hold the dandelion under someone’s
chin and if it makes the chin all yellow, he’s in love”.
She instantly reached down, picked a single
dandelion, and held it, gently under his chin.
“Did you know you were in love?” she asked.
Her name was Catherine, and was a nurse in the Navy.
A whirlwind romance ensued.
Joe knew that he had to marry her, but
he couldn’t until he told her his secret.
A deep, and dark secret that might not only destroy
his chance at love, but also destroy his very freedom.
But, before he could summon the courage to tell her, new
orders were shoved into his hands by an uncaring Naval officer.
He was to report to the HMCS-Cayuga as a medical officer,
before sailing off for the coast of wartorn Korea.
On board the Cayuga, Joe was immediately under scrutiny, as a
new member of the officer corps on the ship, and as the person
plugging up bullet wounds, the sailors aboard the destroyer
had a vested interest in their new medical officer’s skill.
Soon, he was called into the captain’s cabin, as
his new commander, James Plomer, was complaining
of a terrible aching pain in a few of his teeth.
Joe assured the captain that he could remove the offending teeth
immediately, but he needed to gather his equipment below decks.
After what seemed like an eternity, the captain sent his executive
officer down to Joe’s quarters, demanding what was taking so long.
He assured them that his office was simply
disorganised, and he needed a moment longer.
After some pleading from the Exec, Joe returned to the
captain’s quarters, administered a healthy dose of novocaine,
and deftly yanked out the two clearly rotten teeth.
The HMCS Cayuga offered close-artillery
support to soldiers on the ground.
Typically, the cannons were enough to prevent any friendly
casualties, but one September afternoon, a Korean junk saddled
up the Cayuga carrying a boatload of injured Korean soldiers.
Joe was watching the ship’s engine idle when an officer retrieved him.
Joe looked upon the pile of bleeding men as the
Captain stood next to him, asking “you willing, Joe?
It is not required” but the pitiful faces of dying
men, regardless of what side they were on, were enough
to turn his heart, and he resolved to help them.
The 19 soldiers were gravely injured, and would certainly
die without his help, and even if his help could only give
them the slightest chance of survival, he could not sit idle.
Dr Joseph Cyr descended into a lifeless
realm that cool September afternoon.
His sick bay a waiting room before the afterlife.
The skipper and navigator up at the bridge, watching a storm
sail toward them, desperately held the ship steady as every
cry of pain echoing up from below decks reminded them of death.
If they lost control of the ship, it wouldn’t
matter what Joe did, those men would not survive.
By the time Joe was done, the morning sun was cresting over
the horizon, the Japanese mainland stretching wide across
the view from the little porthole down in the medical bay.
By the end of his stint, Joe had performed
16 surgeries, including open chest surgery.
He wrote a letter back to Catherine in Halifax, hoping she would hear
of his exploits, and at the same time, he was approached by a young
press officer interested in a colourful story for the army newspaper.
The officer told the Doctor that his story would be in army
dispatches, and would also be shown in his hometown’s local papers.
Despite being from Grand Falls, New Brunswick,
he insisted that the paper be shown in Halifax
with the hopes that Catherine would see it too.
At the same time, however, in the sleepy town of Edmonston, a
short drive north of Grand Falls, New Brunswick, another Dr.
Joseph Cyr was answering some phone calls.
“I read a newspaper in Halifax that said you saved a bunch
of kids in Korea?” … “No, not you?” … “Your son then?”
At first, Joe thought that it must be
some perplexing cosmic coincidence.
“There are lots of Cyrs in the world”, he mused,
but then, after learning that he was the only Dr.
Joseph Cyr in the whole of Canada, and
seeing a photograph of the alleged Dr.
Cyr, he realised the perplexing truth.
“Why, this is my friend, Brother John Payne
of the Brothers of Christian Instruction”!
The papers, without consulting the navy, had published the article on
the mystery surgeon’s exploits in not only Halifax, but Toronto as well.
This drew the attention of some higher ups, and they quickly
unravelled a spider web of lies that led an impostor to
the position of chief medical officer on a military ship!
The question remained though, who was this “fake” Dr. Cyr?
In the summer of 1950, Dr.
Cecil Boyce Hamann, after leaving the law program at Northeastern Law
School in Boston, arrived at the Brothers of Christian Instruction
in Alfred, Maine, as a convert with a PhD in zoology from Purdue.
The monks were elated, and immediately introduced him into the order.
The first thing Cecil did was suggest that the brothers
grow their small junior college, which specialised in
teachers education, into a full-time 4 year college.
The other brothers thought this was a grand idea, and let
Cecil take the name Brother John Payne, before beginning his
valiant, yet “extraordinarily pushy” time at the college.
This is where Brother John Payne met Dr. Joseph Cyr.
Winter in the small town of Alfred was a cozy affair,
with snow hedging in the inhabitants for months at a time.
The two became fast friends, chatting about all sorts of subjects,
medical information especially, growing closer over time.
As John neared the end of his probationary period with
the college, Joe asked him if he could do him a favour.
Brother John was American, and as a Canadian, Joe
needed help to acquire the right papers to get a
licence to practise medicine in the United States.
“Give me your records and credentials, and I can, Doctor … all of them.
The more, the quicker.” said Brother John, and soon he had
a stack of papers weighing nearly a pound all together.
Soon after, a notice was posted announcing
the staff assignments for the new college.
Unfortunately, to the intense chagrin of Brother John,
he was not put in charge of the college, nor was he given
the head of a department, he was merely a biology teacher.
Expanding the college into a 4 year program was his idea!
How could they pass him up?
In a rage over being ignored, he stormed
off to his room to begin packing.
On his way out, he noticed a bottle of wine used for
mass, and, in a fit of anger, drank the entire bottle in
two swift gulps, all in front of a bewildered colleague.
I mean, we’ve all been there.
Then, the soon-to-be former member of the college stomped out the
front door where he saw another colleague sitting in a station wagon.
“Did they fix it yet?” asked Brother John.
“Fix what?” said the young man in the driver’s seat.
“That whirring noise like the transmission is about to
explode.” replied John, “I’ll race the motor for you”.
The brother in the car immediately ejected himself from the vehicle
while John plopped himself in the driver's seat and turned the engine.
“Tell them this.
Say I hope their rotten college will prove such a failure that the
crash will be heard all the way into the Vatican … now look out”.
And with that, Brother John sped off into the night, leaving
behind the school he regarded as his own, and a baffled brotherhood
bewildered by the boldest burglary they had ever beheld.
Outside of Lawrence, Massachusetts there is a hand painted sign.
It reads, “WELCOME TO LAWRENCE Our motto:
See Dante’s Inferno, Canto III, Line 9”.
If we look it up, we find the passage, “All hope abandon, ye who enter
here”, the mythological words resting above the entrance to Hell.
If you were very lucky, you might have seen the lurching
figure of a stray 29 year old hauling up a dark sign
outside a hometown he always dreamed of out-growing.
Almost 30 years before Brother John sped off into the distance, a boy
was born to a French-Canadian father and an Irish American mother in
the little town of Lawrence, just outside Boston on December 12th, 1921.
As the first male son of the family, his father was elated
to finally have an heir, and treated his son as such.
The boy was named after his father becoming Ferdinand Waldo Demara
Jr, and on the day of his 4th birthday, dear old dad announced
boldly to all present that “Beginning tonight he is to be called Mr. Demara”.
To an applauding audience, young Ferdinand, going by
Fred, stepped up onto a table, fetched a handful of
roses and gave one to each of the family’s servants.
Such was Fred’s pseudo-aristocratic upbringing,
and it reflected in his vision of himself.
However, their nouveau riche lifestyle became more difficult to
uphold as his family’s wealth declined during the Great Depression.
Young Fred hated the look of patched shoes,
seeing them as an insult to his station.
In the coming years, Fred left home
to join a monastery of Trappist monks.
He moved around a bit with the Brother’s of Charity,
another monkhood, where he taught 4th grade.
Eventually, he got into an argument with the Head Brother,
stole a car, some money, and ran off to join the army.
It was 1941.
Now, as it turns out, war is a pain in the
rear at best, and a deathtrap at worst.
Not at all the kind of place a formerly wealthy boy born with
a silver spoon in his mouth could make a name for himself.
It wasn’t all bad however, aside from parades in the early morning,
callisthenics, and the possibility of being sent to fight in an
actual real world war, Fred made some friends while he was there.
One day, while in Anthony’s hometown of New Orleans, the duo
went to his childhood home to meet his mother, who took out a
box full of mementos and documents outlining Anthony’s life.
Anthony thought that his friend Fred would die of boredom
looking over his old papers, but Fred was enthralled.
He pored over his friend’s documents.
“Whattaya’ see in those things?” Anthony asked.
“I see a whole life ahead of me,” Fred replied.
A few weeks later, after sanding down a blister on his heel until
it bled in order to get out of marching orders, Fred snuck out
using a forged day pass, and took the bus back down to New Orleans.
Surprising Anthony’s mother, he appeared at her front doorstep
saying he wanted to take a look at his friend’s papers again.
He pored over the little box of documents until late late in the night.
Anthony’s mother left for bed, and in the morning all she
found was a note, thanking her for her kindness, and the box
containing her son’s life, back in his room, where it belonged.
Luckily for Fred, she didn’t bother checking
to see if there was anything left inside.
If you’d asked him why he did it, Fred would have been very clear.
He hated the army, he was still wanted for car theft, and the only
way to get out of his responsibilities was to become someone else.
And become someone else he did, and he did so over and over.
First, under the guise of Anthony Ignolia, he joined the Abbey
of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky, then after being caught
in a lie, he bolted for New Melleray Abbey near Dubuque, Iowa.
Shortly after that he returned home where his father chastised
him for deserting the army in a time of war, a capital offence.
Instead of turning himself in like a good boy, Fred joined the
Navy, hoping to quickly rise through the ranks as a medical officer,
however, despite doing well through basic training, he was rejected for
advanced medical training because he didn’t have the right education.
So once more Fred made his plans to escape military service.
After doctoring documents, scamming officials for school transcripts,
and collecting the appropriate paperwork, he strolled down to
the docks, and left a note on the side of the water begging
forgiveness hoping that his former comrades would assume him drowned.
Fred Waldo Demara was dead, and now, only Dr.
Robert Linton French, PhD in Psychology, was left.
Fred worked under French’s name for as long as he
could, bouncing around different Christian colleges
doing sundry work teaching and cooking here and there.
Unfortunately for Fred however, he was caught by
military police in 1945 and imprisoned for desertion.
Lucky for him, his original sentence of 6 years
was cut down to 18 months for good behaviour.
After being released from prison, Fred got a job working
nights at the Massachusetts General Eye and Ear Infirmary.
This was a dream come true, as now he had unabashed access to the
infirmary’s mailroom, and he quickly set about to create a new identity.
Fred had heard about a Dr. Cecil Boyce Hamann on the bus, and
thought he was as good a man as any to be.
Fred forged the signatures of doctors who worked at
the clinic, and used office stationery to acquire Dr.
Cecil’s credentials.
So now, with all the documents he needed, he
set off for Northeastern Law School in Boston.
From here, we know some of the story.
Fred, under Dr. Cecil’s name, joined the Brothers of Christian Instruction,
met Dr. Joseph Cyr, and acquired his documents
before speeding off into the night.
We also know that after that, Fred, now as Dr.
Joseph Cyr, joined the Canadian Navy, and met the love
of his life, Catherine on that sunny day in Halifax.
Many have purported that Demara had a
photographic memory, and a genius level IQ.
After only a frantic reading of the medical textbooks
he had in his fraudulently acquired office, he was
able to successfully perform dental work, open chest
surgery, and a litany of other life threatening injuries.
Whether or not he truly possessed an
exceptional brain is hard to confirm.
What isn't, however, is that no matter what identity he was
wearing, Fred Waldo Demara, was no doubt, a master of charisma.
After the news of “Dr. Joseph Cyr” was an impostor, the authorities came for Fred quickly.
He was transferred into the custody of another Navy vessel and
immediately shipped back to Canada where he was interrogated,
still claiming to be a surgeon, who, for one reason or
another, had to enter the Canadian Navy under a false identity.
The Royal Canadian Navy, not wanting to embarrass itself,
and learning that a man with no medical knowledge whatsoever
had somehow infiltrated their ranks, performing over a dozen
surgeries—all successful, discharged him at once, hoping that
with his departure, all memory of this humiliation would fade.
After Fred returned home to America, nursing the wound of being
captured, he sold his life story to LIFE Magazine, who regaled the
world with the exploits of Ferdinand Waldo Demara, The Great Impostor.
It did little to help him feel better, and
eventually he turned more and more to drink.
He took on odd jobs here and there, under this or that disguise, but
by 1957, as he taught at a local school in Maine, he was recognized
from his story in LIFE, and arrested by the FBI on February 14th.
Fortunately, he was only arrested on charge of not having
a teaching licence, and was given 2 months probation.
In 1960, he was cast in a film called Hypnotic Eye in which he learned
he was a terrible, godawful actor despite acting basically his entire
life, and in the same year, Robert Crichton wrote a biography on him.
From then, to the time of his death on June 7th 1981,
Fred lived in relative obscurity, his newfound fame
putting a stop to the majority of his cons and grifts.
Looking back at what he did, he defines it as “pure rascality”.
He never saw Catherine again.
His medical degree might have been fake,
but his love was definitely a “surgeon”?
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