A local funding campaign led by E. J. Dysart the previous spring had raised some $17,000 to locate the base at Victoria on a 1,000-acre (1.6 sq mi; 4.0 km2) site as an economic asset.

Seventeen years earlier, he and aviation trainee Maj. Lee O. Wright were killed in the crash of a Curtiss JN-6H, AS-44806,[6] about two miles (3 km) east of Brooks Field.

[2][3] The U.S. Air Force retained a recapture right, which it exercised at Foster and at many other former bases to accommodate the Korean War training surge.

In the fall of 1951, the federal government purchased 1,376 acres (2.2 sq mi; 5.6 km2) at the site, and Foster Field was reactivated for single-engine jet training.

[2][7] Under Tactical Air Command, the 450th Fighter-Bomber Wing, was activated at Foster, on 1 July 1954, replacing and absorbing the assets of the 3580th PTW.

[2] The primary mission of the 450th FBW was to maintain tactical proficiency for combat operations and to prepare for overseas deployments as part of Ninth Air Force.

[8] On 8 July 1955, Foster AFB became the location of Headquarters, Nineteenth Air Force (19AF), under the command of Maj Gen Henry Viccellio.

From Foster, Nineteenth AF responded to the 1958 Lebanon crisis, when the United States sent in forces to sustain a pro-Western government after a conflict in Iraq threatened to spill across the border.

[8] Also, attached to Nineteenth AF, the 450th FDW carried out the first overseas deployment of a complete tactical force as a unit in a training flight to Europe in 1956.

The next year three Foster-based F-100s flew the first TAC single-engine, nonstop, round-trip mission over a great distance when they "attacked" Panama in a training maneuver.

[2] On 1 July 1958, the 450th was redesignated as the 450th Tactical Fighter Wing (450 TFW) as part of a worldwide USAF renaming of its Fighter-Bomber and Fighter-Day units with a single mission designator.

[2] This closure was strictly due to budgetary constraints in the Air Force, however the closing came as a surprise to both Victorians and base commanders.

[2][10] Nineteenth Air Force was moved to Seymour Johnson AFB, North Carolina, effective 1 September 1958.

[8][11] Despite a rigorous "Save Foster" campaign led in Washington by Senators Lyndon B. Johnson and Ralph Yarborough and congressman Clark Thompson, the base closed on 31 December 1958.

In the summer of 1960, the General Services Administration approved the exchange of Aloe Army Airfield for Foster Field, and Victoria County Airport was moved to the latter site.