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
Marshal of the Russian Federation Field Marshal. The only officer to have held the rank is the former Minister of Defence Igor Sergeyev, who had been elevated from the General of the Army of the Strategic Rocket Forces. Sergeyev was Marshal from 1997 until his death in 2006. The insignia for Marshal of the Russian Federation is similar to the one for the Marshal of the Soviet Union, with the Soviet crest replaced by the Russian one. An officer who is given this rank would also wear the Marshal's star. Marshal of the Russian Federation Marshal of the Russian Federation () is the highest military