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 Brigade was held off by anti-tank units helped later by tanks of the arriving "Ariete" Division. On 2 November, Rommel let Hitler know that: "The army's strength was so exhausted after its ten days of battle that it was not now capable of offering any effective opposition to the enemy's next break-through attempt ... With our great shortage of vehicles an orderly withdrawal of the non-motorised forces appeared impossible ... In these circumstances we had to reckon, at the least, with the gradual destruction of the army." At 13.30 on 3 November Rommel received a reply: "To Field Marshal Rommel.