During the North African Campaign of the Second World War, Tell El Kebir was a site for the Eighth Army vehicle park, a military hospital and a large ordnance depot, with many military mechanical and electrical repair workshops including the RAOC Base Vehicle Depot Tell El Kebir BVD(E) which remained for several years after the war as part of the Tell El Kebir Garrison which was surrounded by a perimeter wire and minefield, and heavily guarded due to the tense atmosphere in Egypt at the time, that supplied every type of vehicle used by the British Army in the Middle East Theatre until the Suez Emergency was declared, and fought in the Canal Zone.