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
Second Battle of El Alamein the DAF to be cautious, reduce the number of offensive sorties on 5 November and protect the Eighth Army. The Axis made a fighting withdrawal to El Agheila but Rommel's troops found themselves exhausted and with few replacements, while Montgomery had planned to transport material over great distances, to provide the Eighth Army with of supplies per day. Huge quantities of engineer stores had been collected to repair transport infrastructure and the railway line from El Alamein to Fort Capuzzo, despite having been blown up in over 200 places, was quickly repaired. In the month after Eighth Army reached Capuzzo,