Douglas Marshall Littleton was born in 1899 in New York. He was the son of Martin Wiley Littleton and Maud Elizabeth Wilson Littleton. Douglas was rejected from service in the Army and was acting as an Under Secretary of the American Embassy. He left Princeton in October 1918 to enter the government service. He arrived in Paris November 10, the day before the armistice was signed, and went to work deciphering and decoding messages in the embassy. Douglas became ill on December 30 and he was thought by the family to be improving, when the message announcing his death was received. He died of pneumonia in 1919.