Land mine invention by the Polish officer Józef Kosacki. His invention, known as the Polish mine detector, was used by the Allies alongside mechanical methods, to clear the German mine fields during the Second Battle of El Alamein when 500 units were shipped to Field Marshal Montgomery's Eighth Army. The Nazis used captured civilians who were chased across minefields to detonate the explosives. According to Laurence Rees "Curt von Gottberg, the SS-Obergruppenführer who, during 1943, conducted another huge anti-partisan action called Operation Kottbus on the eastern border of Belarus, reported that 'approximately two to three thousand local people were blown up in
Battle of Mersa Matruh flooded sections of the Nile Delta, prepared to demolish infrastructure and built up defensive positions at Alexandria and the Suez canal. A scorched earth policy was discussed but decided against. Mellenthin said of this: "Rommel may have been lucky, but Mersa Matruh was certainly a brilliant German victory and gave us great hopes of 'bouncing' 8th Army out of the Alamein line." This was not to be. In the event Auchinleck solidified 8th Army and in a month's worth of fighting checked the German advance at the First Battle of El Alamein. After it was over both sides were exhausted,