However the 4th Parachute Brigade were very heavily engaged on the evening of the 19th September in moving south of the railway about Wolfheze and again on the morning of the 20th, when they started their move eastwards. By the end of that day some 200 men, all that were left of that Brigade, which then included the 156th and 10th Parachute Battalions, had assembled in the Hartenstein area and were placed in position covering the approaches to Hartenstein along the main road from Arnhem. In the meanwhile all efforts on the 19th September to reach the bridge had failed and the remnants of the 1st, 3rd and 11th Parachute Battalions and of the 2nd Battalion The South Staffordshire Regiment had reassembled in the area of Oosterbeek Church, where they were reorganized into a composite force by Major Lonsdale of the 11th Parachute Battalion, this force thereafter being known as Lonsdale Force.

On the bridge at Arnhem (139K) on the 19th and 20th the defenders were continually attacked, shelled and mortared. The houses which they were holding were set on fire, food and ammunition ran low, and the numbers of wounded continually mounted. Nevertheless the position was still held. However by the evening of the 20th nearly all the houses held had been set on fire and there was nowhere to put the wounded. During the night enemy infiltration made the position worse. At five o'clock on the morning of the 21st an attempt to retake some houses failed and it was clear that the end had come. Those remaining split into small parties and tried to break out. All opposition at the bridge now ceased. The task of the lst Parachute Brigade had been to seize and hold this bridge. Those who reached it did this for nearly four days under continual attack and fire and against increasing and ultimately overwhelming odds. At nine o'clock on the morning of the 21st September, Generaal Urquhart held a conference at his Headquarters to organize a defensive perimeter of those troops that remained. These were divided into two forces, one under Brigadier Hicks(6K), the other under Brigadier Hackett. They were to hold a position with its base on the river Rhine, and running from the area of Oosterbeek Church northwards across the main road to Arnhem to the neighbourhood of Graftombe, thence its western flank passed a few hundred yards west of the Hartenstein Hotel to Heveadorp. This position during the battle did contract and individual enemy troops were to infiltrate into, but despite intense German efforts it never gave way.