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
Correlli Barnett the Italians from Cyrenaica in late 1940, and Field-Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck (whom he called "The Victor of Alamein"), who forced Rommel to a halt at the First Battle of El Alamein, only to be dismissed by Winston Churchill for his pains. He pointed out that Montgomery enjoyed massive superiority of men and materiel at the Second Battle of El Alamein, and described him as an "emotional cripple", a description, he noted in subsequent editions, borne out "in rich detail" by the Nigel Hamilton biography. However, Barnett's conclusions are attacked by Field Marshal Michael Carver in his book 'Dilemmas of