This battle took place between 17 and 19 September 1639 when a Dutch squadron under Admiral
Maarten Tromp
Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp (also written as ''Maerten Tromp''; 23 April 1598 – 31 July 1653) was a Dutch army general and admiral in the Dutch navy.
Son of a ship's captain, Tromp spent much of his childhood at sea, including being capture ...
and Admiral
Witte Corneliszoon de With
Witte Corneliszoon de With (28 March 1599 – 8 November 1658) was a Dutch naval officer. He is noted for planning and participating in a number of naval battles during the Eighty Years War and the First Anglo-Dutch war.
Early life and ch ...
, met with a much larger but poorly led Spanish fleet under Antonio D'Oquendo, consisting of 40 to 45 men–of–war and 40 to 50 transport vessels filled with some 13,000 Spanish soldiers who were being transported to
Dunkirk
Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France. . Tromp with 12 ships spotted the Spanish fleet on the 16th, but waited for de With to arrive with five more ships before attacking. Despite his numerical inferiority Tromp got the upper hand in a running fight which lasted into the night. The next day,
Zeeland
, nl, Ik worstel en kom boven("I struggle and emerge")
, anthem = "Zeeuws volkslied"("Zeelandic Anthem")
, image_map = Zeeland in the Netherlands.svg
, map_alt =
, m ...
Commodore
Joost Banckert
Joost van Trappen Banckert (c.1597 – 12 September 1647) was a Dutch Vice Admiral who worked most of his sailing life for the admiralty of Zeeland.
He was born in Vlissingen in 1597 or 1599. Early in his career he was active against the Dun ...
arrived to reinforce the Dutch with 12 more ships. Fighting continued until the Dutch ran out of gunpowder when D'Oquendo retreated to the roadstead of the
Downs hoping for English protection which would eventually lead to the
Battle of the Downs, where D'Oquendo was decisively defeated.
This fight is notable because Tromp used the
line of battle
The line of battle is a tactic in naval warfare in which a fleet of ships forms a line end to end. The first example of its use as a tactic is disputed—it has been variously claimed for dates ranging from 1502 to 1652. Line-of-battle tacti ...
for the first time.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Action Of 18 September 1639
Naval battles of the Eighty Years' War
1639 in Europe
Eighty Years' War (1621–1648)