John Wesley Foster Jr. was born in Amarillo, Texas in July 1915, the son of John and Mabel Foster. The family later resided in Torrance. Foster was employed at the Southern Pacific Company in El Paso, Texas before he joined the U.S Army Air Forces (AAF). He trained at the Polaris Flight Academy in Lancaster, California before transferring to the Advanced Flying Training Base (La Junta Army Airfield) at La Junta, Colorado which was established in 1942 as part of a massive expansion of pilot training in World War II.  

2nd Lt. Foster was attached to the 302nd Bombardment Group, 357th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy). On April 1, 1943, he was the copilot of a B-24E Liberator bomber that crashed while on a night training mission at the south edge of the Army Air Base at Clovis, New Mexico. The entire nine man crew perished in the crash.

Foster was survived by his parents, eight brothers and sisters and his fiancée Virginia Garner of Wilmington.  A funeral was held for him at Niland’s Chapel of the Flowers in Redondo Beach. The Rev. Guy Margeson, chaplain at nearby Fort MacArthur, was the officiant and also arranged the firing party and bugler at Roosevelt Memorial Park Cemetery in Gardena, California, where Foster is interred.