Chapter 19: 4F

Chapter 19: 4F

Hector handed the monthly agenda to Truman while giving the hidden agenda to Roosevelt. Moony had to stay in the White House and keep an eye on what went on.

After that, he got on a ship to North Africa with Logan alongside him. The man was excited to finally have some action. 50 Helicopters had been manufactured. Congress was still deciding on their effectiveness, however, so Hector decided to take 10 of them to Africa for free. Though he was worried if they will endure the heat, thankfully, Einstein and his friends designed a cooling mechanism that needed a special liquid coolant. With this, they could fly over the pyramids easily.

Their journey took a week to reach the place. The ground forces were majorly participating from the United States, United Kingdom, mainly British Raj and Free France.

Operation Torch was sanctioned by the American and British governments, Hector had signed on the plan himself so he knew everything about it. Their plan was to land in three places. Casablanca, Oran and Algiers. Out of these, Casablanca will have only American forces of 30,000. Oran will have only British forces, while Algiers will have American and British combined.

Their major enemy was not the Germans and the Italians right now. Axis forces were currently in Easter Africa. Meanwhile, the entire Northern Africa was under the occupation of Vichy France, the French State headed by Marshal Philippe Petain. The regime was authoritarian, xenophobic, antisemitic and traditionalist in nature. Officially independent, it adopted a policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany. So, it was a puppet state of Germany.

France was in trouble, most of it was under German occupation. It was Free France that sided with the Allies and Vichy France that sided with Axis.

Hence, according to what he knew about history, wanted to capture the commander of the Vichy forces. It was a fact that the man, Francois Darlan, was an opportunist, that was why Hitler never trusted him.

So, Hector gathered the allied commanders on the British Carrier for briefing. He was the only person there without a military rank yet he outranked everyone in the room. He was the Commander-in-Chief after all.

"Mr President, it's a great honour to be alongside a great general like you." Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force of the North African Theatre of Operations (NATOUSA), greeted him.

Hector, from his memories, knew that Eisenhower had worked under him a long time ago. There was another man who had done the same.

"But this is going to be a dangerous place for you to be, General... I mean, President Washington." Lt. General George S. Patton said.

Hector patted the man's shoulder, "Don't worry about me, my friend. I hope you can keep your temper in check in this war. We don't want any controversial words reaching back home. Be compassionate as much as you can."

Hector's words had deep meaning. The slapping incident was famously known in the previous life. Patton had slapped two privates in a field hospital in front of doctors for showing battle fatigue and forced them to head to the front line. That even caught a lot of bad press and eventually, Patton lost his commands and was sidelined.

"I have brought some gifts. The new flying machines are called Helicopters. They can take off from anywhere and land anywhere. They will help you folks transport heavy artillery to the fields. You will need them to siege the castles." He advised them.

"Mr President, we won't need them. We expect no resistance from the french." Eisenhower said.

Hector sighed, this was exactly what caused the loss of lives originally. He shook his head, "You may be right, but also wrong. Understand this, the Vichy forces are spread around. They have no way of communicating fast. Do you think every single soldier among them knows whatever deal you have made?

"They will not crazily attack but they might try to defend to their best. So, I advise you to hold on to the attack until I have settled things from my side. If everything goes well, we will have won without even fighting."

All of the commanders looked at him with either confusion or disregard. But could they say no to his orders? Nope.

So, the plan was just slightly changed. Out of the 10 helicopters, Hector gave them 9 and took one with himself with extra fuel. His destination was Algiers. Free France had their resistance already capture the city in expectation of the allied invasion. They had also caught Francois Darlan.

...

Hector piloted his helicopter himself and arrived at the Fort in Algiers. Nobody was expecting an air raid or invasion, and Hector flew close to the ground from locations where nothing but desert existed.

"What's the plan?" Logan asked.

"Get Francois Darlan to sign a deal with us and make him surrender his forces and then help us fight the Axis." He explained.

When they landed their helicopter in the fort, they were surrounded by French resistance soldiers, guns aimed at their heads. Their leader quickly came forward, seeing there were just two people, they didn't feel threatened. How wrong they were.

Hector spoke in fluent french and told them who he was and why he was there, it shocked them that the American President was here, but they didn't really care at the moment when they were being sieged by enemies. Soon enough, he was taken to Francois Darlan, kept inside a prison. The man had been fed well as he was the only way for a bloodless war here.

"Wait outside, I will negotiate with him," Hector told everyone and entered the prison cell.

Logan followed up to see how he would negotiate with him. But, he nearly spat blood, *BAM*

Hector punched the man so hard he lost half of his teeth. "You fascist evil scum, do you know who you are facing?"

The man weakly nodded, "Fuck off, I will never make my forces surrender now. You bloody allies, I will see you all die one after another."

*BAM*

"Then I will skin you alive, scum." Hector took out a knife from his pocket and seriously started to skin his body. First, he skinned his arms, then cut his ear. Hector then started to use the satanic powers to make the man speak up, "Do you want to say something? Something that you desire... always wanting to have but never quite got there? Tell me your deepest darkest desire..."

Francois Darlan's eyes had a strange shine all of a sudden and sense of ecstasy appeared on his face, "I... I want to become the Emperor of France. Become the richest man in the world, defeat Germany and conquer them. Kill Hitler and claim myself the ruler Fuhrer."

Hector chuckled, "Haha, why are you all the same? Europe is a mess because of folks like you. But don't worry, we've got all that in the video now. We just need to send it to Germany. Once Hitler sees it, he will send men to kill you."

Logan waved at Francois Darlan while smoking a cigar and turning off a big video camera. "You're dead meat, bub."

Once that was done, he congratulated the men, "My friends, we are in the final stretch of this dangerous campaign. As long as we cross the trench field and take over that fort, we will win. They will have no choice but to surrender. Now, I want to make this as less bloody as possible."

"How?" They asked.

"Well... I will start blasting." He said with a chuckle and left the tent. He went to the edge of the camp and called Logan. "You brought them?"

"There you go," Logan put down a crate beside Hector. Immediately, Hector picked one mortar shell and threw it swiftly. It made a whistling sound for a while, then a loud explosion came in distance. *BOOM*

All of a sudden, the enemy camp had movement, and alarms went on. Sadly for them, they were much further from the normal mortar range. Hence, Hector was the only person who could throw them.

Slowly, a big crowd gathered around Hector, the top general stood behind him, then other officers and soldiers. Many had drinks with them and some were smoking while laughing.

"Umm... General, ten degrees to the left." A lieutenant used binoculars to help Hector aim.

*BOOM*

This time a bigger explosion appeared, it was most likely the enemy armoury. "Haha, good eyesight, Kennedy, my boy." He praised.

This young man was John F. Kennedy. Originally, he was to serve in the Navy, but since Hector appeared, he inspired many young men to follow in his footsteps.

Slowly, the enemy side started to look like a hell camp. People were seen trying to stop fires from spreading in the trenches. After 4 hours of bombardment, a white flag was seen on the trenches and the fort behind it.

The Allied troops cheered, jumped in excitement, with no care about the fatigue. The war in Africa had come to an end, and Hector had saved more lives than he could count.

The Germans and Italians surrendered, with their total prisoners of war exceeding 500,000. While 12,000 British were killed, 200,000 had been injured. On the American side, 1,087 were killed, 2000 were wounded and 3000 were missing. The loss had been reduced by a huge margin compared to what it would have been. Battles were many times won by Hector's clever plans or himself carrying the entire army on his back of steel.

He was seen as a beloved old man on top of being their President and Commander-in-chief. The soldiers loved to talk to him as he was approachable. He even heard about many problems soldiers described that their families face in many parts of the United States. All of them were noted down in a register and then the register was transported to the White House for a special committee to oversee that they get solved.

His popularity was off the roof. Since most of the Army was made up of newly conscripted soldiers who were young, they came up with a nickname for Hector, though they never called him this face to face. Among themselves, they used the word "Old Father".

...

The African campaign was a huge success. Unlike in the original world, where the campaign lasted more than a year, here it ended in months. Just one month after Hector's involvement. His decisions, such as introducing a new camouflage dress, saved many lives.

With this, the campaign for the Italian campaign was open. But, Hector had to return to his country to do his job as the president. And it was also the time he solved the Civil Rights laws.

...

Brooklin,

"Steven Grant Rogers," a military doctor called the name.

Steve put down the newspaper and walked to the doctor and showed his file. But the moment it read, "4F Rejected"

Philadelphia,

"4F Rejected"

Cleveland,

"4F Rejected"

"Please, give me a chance to prove myself." he requested.

"No, next come forward."

Steve Rogers, with a tired and frustrated face, sat in the park. On his side was a newspaper with a big photo of President Washington in military attire, posing with other generals and troops as the American flag waved behind them. The headline read, "Walks The Talk. The President Fights For Nation."

Steve had tried to get into the army from 4 different places, each time he was rejected for being too weak and sick. He begged to be allowed, even if he's to do menial jobs, he would. But, there was no place for weaklings in the army.

Defeated, he alone sat there. His best friend, Bucky, had already been inducted into the Army and was getting trained.

He looked at the image of Hector in the papers, "Mr President, I don't know how to serve the nation anymore."

Sighing, he headed back to Brooklin, his home. ~I guess... being a weakling good for nothing is all that's written in my fate.~

[A/N: This was a long chapter related to war. I used it to establish to the world that Hector is an amazing General. One who can lead by himself and also carry the army on his own. After this, things will be faster, but we will be entering the First Avenger arc. Steve and Hector will be meeting soon.]