Capn Claret. Your story is tad embellished but based in fact. A flight of nine (??) USAF P39 Air Cobras were being ferried to PNG. They encountered bad weather in the Straits and elected to follow the Aussie coast looking for a place to land.
Ultimately they landed on a beach north of Weipa and the crews were rescued.
Most of those aircraft have since been recovered - I think one or two may now be flying in the USA. I also seem to recall the Australian War Memorial has one of the aircraft on display?