Fallout – How to move settlers between settlements

Items stored in a crafting station will be shared among all crafting stations in the immediate area. This is mostly only relevant in settlements. If you drop stuff off in power armor station in the middle of Lexington, it will stay there until you go get it.

Within settlements, anything stored in one bench can be utilized for crafting or removed within that settlement.

If you set up a supply line between settlements, you'll be able to use any junk or aid items to craft with at any connected settlements, but you can only remove stored items at the settlement they are actually stored at.

In other words, if you put a bunch of duct tape in the armor bench in Sanctuary, you can use it at Red Rocket if you have a supply line between them, but you can't take the duct tape out at Red Rocket and carry it somewhere else.

If you put a 10mm pistol into the armor bench at Sanctuary, you can take it out of the weapon bench in Sanctuary, but it will never be available at Red Rocket.

This happens. I've had an instance where there were definitely no enemies and in that instance you're just going to have to deal with it.

Essentially, explore the entire region around the settlement and see if you can find more enemies, if you can't, sit around for a bit and see what happens. If you have a siren then use it, see if the call to arms allows one of your settlers to see the enemies that are supposed to be attacking.

Settlement attacks are random rather than pre-determined which is why reloading the save didn't allow you to relive the attack.

Additionally, settler count and settlement statistics via the Pip Boy interface are not always correct, as discussed here in this question.