the minefields, for the first and then came upon barbed wire, which turned out to line a dummy minefield. Over the next , the battalion took twenty prisoners, scattered several parties of Axis infantry and moved for about beyond a ridge, to what was thought to be Snipe, after a smoke shell was fired to mark the position by the British artillery. It was a similar depression to Snipe with an abandoned German engineer store, about south-east of the objective. Turner ordered the battalion to dig in at and fired the rocket signal for the heavier weapons to be brought forward. The lorries and Chevrolet carrying the anti-tank guns, encountered long sandy ridges which slowed the journey but nineteen of the twenty-seven 6-pounders and the ammunition were unloaded and dug in by The guns in small dips had cover and were on soft sand, which could be excavated; the five guns of B Company were dug in to the south-east, facing from C Company had four guns which were to the south-west, covering the angles from and A Company had four guns facing north-west and north. Six guns of 239/76th Anti-Tank Battery faced north and north east. The C Company carrier platoon patrolled to the west and found about ready to surrender but before infantry arrived to collect them, the platoon ran into a laager of about tanks (XII Armoured Battalion from the 133rd Armoured Division "Littorio") and German tanks, (self-propelled anti-tank guns) and infantry (). The British opened fire and set three lorries on fire but lost a carrier while withdrawing. Most of the prisoners ran away but from Pioneer Battalion 220 of the 164th Light Afrika Division Pioneer Battalion 33 of the 15th Panzer Division. Camp fires showed that another laager with tanks of the 15th Panzer Division was to the north. broke camp and formed two columns, one moving towards the laager to the north and one straight towards the south-west part of Outpost Snipe, where C and B companies were placing their anti-tank guns. The column was led by a Panzer IV Special, which was knocked out and set on fire by a C Company 6-pounder at range, as A Company hit a , the column turning aside. The British Forward Observation Officer (FOO) went out to reconnoitre at and disappeared. Just before dawn, the lorries returned to the east with the prisoners. The depression and