50th Division moved up from Tripoli to lead the attack at the Battle of Mareth on 20 March 1943. The enemy position was behind the Wadi Zigzaou, wide, with almost unclimbable sides high. The divisional engineers under their CRE, Lt-Col C.E.A. Browning, made quantities of fascines and scaling ladders, with which they and the infantry advanced 'as though at the storm of Badajoz', according to the RE's historian. The infantry stormed three or four strongpoints and formed a bridgehead. Under accurately ranged shellfire and enfiladed by machine guns, the sappers began to build fascine causeways for tanks and vehicles. Casualties were extremely heavy, but they managed to complete one causeway for tracked vehicles. They were unable to improve it for wheeled vehicles, and the first light tanks to cross it caused such damage in the mud that the heavier tanks could not follow. On the night of 21/22 March heavy rain produced a spate in the Wadi that further damaged the crossing. The 'shattered and weary' 50th Divisional RE were reinforced by Sappers and Miners from 4th Indian Division, and started work in the evening of 22 March on two new causeways, while the enemy were counter-attacking: the wadi was under heavy close-range fire and the rising moon silhouetted the men working on the far bank. The causeways were completed at 03.30 on 23 March under a heavy barrage preceding another enemy counter-attack. The sappers then withdrew without hurrying, so as not to alarm the defending infantry. 50th Division was also in the forefront of the attack on Wadi Akarit on 6 April, when the divisional engineers had the task of clearing gaps in the minefields and making crossings over the anti-tank ditch.