On the edge of a tiny island in north Queensland, gentle ocean waves lap the rusted remains of two warplanes that once flew up and down Australia's east coast hunting Japanese ships and submarines.
Legend says a boatie pulled them from the depths of Challenger Bay, a deep ocean channel about 70 kilometres off the coast of Townsville, and towed them to where they lie now at Wallaby Point on Palm Island.
Aside from a crumbling concrete shack that was once a US Navy base, the warplane wrecks are all that remain to tell the little-known story of how an island home to an Aboriginal reserve protected Australia from a World War II attack.
