Keith Coster


Lieutenant General Keith Robert Coster ID OBE SSAS was a South African army officer who rose to command the Rhodesian Army from 1968 to 1972.
Keith Robert Coster was born on 19 April 1920 in Eshowe, Kwa-Zulu-Natal, South Africa. He was educated at Maritzburg College, in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. After his matriculation at the school in 1936, he enlisted in the Special Service Battalion of the Union Defence Force , and was commissioned into the South African Air Force on 6 September 1939. While flying a Mohawk V with 5 Squadron SAAF, he was shot down over North Africa by a Luftwaffe fighter plane, a Bf109, on 11 July 1942 and was a prisoner of war until 4 May 1945.

Post World War II

After the war, he transferred to the South African army, and during 1952 attended the Royal Army Staff College at Camberley in England. In 1955, he left the South African Permanent Force to join the Army of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland as a major.
On the dissolution of the federation, he joined the Rhodesian Army, in which he rose to the rank of lieutenant general and was appointed as general officer commanding. On 25 April 1969 he took the salute at a Rhodesian African Rifles public open day, in Bulawayo. He retired from that post in 1972 as a lieutenant-general, having commanded the Rhodesian Army from 1968 to 1972. He left for South Africa, serving as a civilian officer with the South African Defence Forces from 1981-1985, when he retired after forty-seven years of exemplary public service.
Keith Coster was awarded four medals for his wartime service and he became an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year's Honours 1963-1964. Whilst in Rhodesian service he was awarded the Independence Decoration, which was awarded in 1970 and in 1971 he received the Exemplary Service Medal. Later when in South African service he was awarded in 1981 a Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of South Africa.
He died peacefully on 5 June 2012 in Somerset West, South Africa.

Personal Life

Keith married Molly Stanley in 1941, and had two children, Steven and Judy, were born out of the marriage. After the death of his first wife, he married Millie Aherin in 1995.