Although imprisoned, Craw's interpreter, Major Pierpont Hamilton, negotiated the French surrender during Operation Torch and the airport was eventually secured for the Allied forces.

[3] The United States Navy (USN) Fleet Air Wing 15 and the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) 480th Antisubmarine Group were based there with specialized aircraft including PBY Catalinas, B-24 Liberators, and Goodyear-built K-ships (blimps) used to search for German U-boats in the Atlantic Ocean and especially in the shallow waters of the Straits of Gibraltar where radar and magnetic anomaly detection were viable.

[4][5] Following World War II, the airfield was expanded to a major US Naval Air Station in 1951 and renamed NAS Port Lyautey.

Aircraft operating from NAS Port Lyautey included the P4M Mercator in the 1950s, the P-2 Neptune in the 1950s and 1960s, and the P-3 Orion, EP-3 Aries and EA-3 Skywarrior in the 1960s and 1970s until the installation's closure as a USN facility and transfer to the Royal Moroccan Air Force in 1977.

Four Northrop F-5 fighter jets from Kenitra attacked a Boeing 727 carrying King Hassan II of Morocco as he entered Moroccan airspace when returning from a visit to France.