Who's Calling All the Destroyers?

T Rex, Tsar, and some guy named Robert Marlow (who seems to be an associate of Vince Clarke) all have songs called "Calling All Destroyers," while Cornershop has one with the same title but with a singular Destroyer.

What's the origin of the phrase? It seems unlikely that it's just a random thing that several different bands would come up with. I guess it's possible that it originated with T Rex and the rest of the participants just lifted the title, but it was a deep cut from Futuristic Dragon, which doesn't seem like a thing that would inspire other bands to want to swipe the title for themselves.

I'm assuming it's some bit of ubiquitous pop culture from the UK - maybe some line that gets repeated a lot in something like Thunderbirds or some other British TV show. Or maybe it's just a common phrase in a nautical nation that lived and died with its navy, although it doesn't turn up in any list of famous naval phrases - it's no "Damn the torpedoes" or "Don't give up the ship."

Anyhow, Cornershop's "Calling All Destroyer" popped up randomly on my commute playlist this morning and it got me wondering why multiple bands used that title and where it's from originally.

I was amused that KISS had an album called Destroyer but to my knowledge, the band Destroyer doesn't have a record called KISS.

Cf. David Bowie's Low and Nick Lowe's Bowi.

or the band Green doing an EP called "REM."