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
Royal Italian Army during World War II Maghreb, the Italian Royal Army occupied Corsica and the French Provence up to the Rhone river. This was the last military expansion of Italy. The Battle of El Alamein, lasting from July to November 1942, was the turning point of the war for the Italian and British Army. As Churchill wrote in his Memories: "...before El Alamein we had only defeats, after El Alamein we had only victories...". The Italian Royal Army fought this battle in a way that can be summarized by the sacrifice of the Division Folgore: the historian Renzo De Felice wrote that "...of the 5.000 "Folgore"