 Initially the 10th Indian Infantry Division was committed piecemeal with units involved at El Adem and Sidi Rezegh during the 1942 Battle of Gazala.In June the division, with the 2nd Free French Brigade under command, was ordered by Lieutenant General William Gott, the XIII Corps commander, to hold a position near the Egyptian border with Libya for 72 hours during the British Eighth Army's retreat to El Alamein.Major General Rees responded that the division had only just concentrated and that defensive works were as yet inadequate.