THE CARREFOUR CACHE

The transmission outside Carentan was not the only strange event reported that night.

Hours after the Signal 19 incident, the same group of American paratroopers received orders to investigate a suspected German weapons cache hidden near a remote farmstead along an old crossroads road known locally as Carrefour des Ombres.

The barn held exactly what they expected.

MP44 rifles stacked beneath hay bales.
Kar98ks wrapped carefully in oil cloth.
Partisan weapons hidden beneath loose flooring.
Thousands of rounds of ammunition packed into crates stamped with German inventory markings.

Nothing unusual for occupied France in 1944.

The farmhouse itself was another matter.

While searching the interior, one of the men reportedly discovered a leather suitcase concealed behind warped boards beneath a staircase. The case was sea foam green with brass corner guards and a metallic emblem pressed into the side:

HAUZE.

Inside were six wristwatches.

No serial numbers.
No paperwork.
No military markings.

The watches appeared unusually refined for wartime Europe. Thin salmon-colored numerals glowed faintly beneath the crystal despite the watches not appearing to be wound. According to one surviving account, all six displayed the exact same time down to the second.

The French farmer who owned the property denied any knowledge of the suitcase.

American intelligence later questioned whether the watches belonged to German officers, resistance couriers, black market smugglers, or perhaps wealthy collaborators attempting to move valuables before liberation.

No answer was ever confirmed.

The farmhouse burned several days later during nearby fighting.

Most official records connected to the discovery vanished shortly afterward.

Of the six watches recovered at Carrefour des Ombres, historians believe only two ever entered official United States government possession.

The remaining four disappeared somewhere between France and home.

To this day, nobody knows who the watches truly belonged to.

Or why they were hidden there in the first place.