Devil's gardens

During the 'break-in' phase of the British attack, the commander of the Eighth Army, Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery, planned for engineers supporting the infantry brigades of the 2nd New Zealand Division to clear lanes through the minefields, along which attacking formations would pass into the Axis positions. Engineers using hand tools were supplemented by Scorpion tanks equipped with rotating flails to explode anti-tank mines. The Scorpions did not work well and manual clearing had to be employed, which would have been more difficult, had the minefields been sown with more anti-personnel mines.

An estimated 3 million mines were laid before the battle, most of which remain and are becoming more unstable and dangerous.