Donald Q. Coster collection

Donald Quested Coster (1907-1984) was the son of Augusta Coster. He graduated from Princeton in 1929, and was an advertising executive in Montreal, Canada. After the outbreak of World War II, he volunteered to serve as an ambulance driver with the American Field Service. In May 1940, Coster's ambulance was shelled near Amiens, France and he was taken captive by German troops. He was released six weeks later. He was then conscripted into to the United States Navy, where he served as vice-consul in Casablanca. In August 1942, he was transferred to the United States Army in England where he helped with the planning for the D-Day invasion. On 8 November 1942 he landed in Oran, Algeria with the U.S. Army Air Force. In 1945 he was assigned to the Office of Strategic Service (O.S.S.) for a mission in Belgium. For his service during the war, he was awarded the Legion of Merit, the North African-European Campaign Medal, and medals from France and Belgium. After the war, he was an advertising executive in New York and Paris. In the 1960s, he worked for the Agency for International Developement (A.I.D.) in Algiers. He would later work at the American Hospital of Paris from 1971-1975.