What made the naval campaigns of 1338 and 1339 so important was that these were focused and sustained raids with deliberate strategic intent, targeting major English towns rather than isolated hamlets and doing so at a critical point in the developing war.
On the south were the English territories of Gascony and Aquitaine, from which lancing raids and chevauchées could be launched into the French heartlands, and where the boundary was both poorly defined and relied far more on the allegiance of the local fief than upon national designations.
To the northeast, the situation was grimmer, with the English-financed armies of Hainaut, Brabant and the Holy Roman Empire either preparing for or threatening invasion of France's northern provinces.
At the beginning of February, King Philip VI appointed a new Admiral of France, one Nicholas Béhuchet, who had previously served as a treasury official and now was instructed to wage economic warfare against England.
[citation needed] On 24 March 1338 he began his campaign, leading a large fleet of small coastal ships across the Channel from Calais and into the Solent where they landed and burnt the vitally important port-town of Portsmouth.
The result was a disaster for Edward, as the town's shipping and supplies were looted, the houses, stores, and docks burnt down, and those of the population unable to flee were killed or taken off as slaves.
This raid caused panic in numerous communities of southern England and prompted a flurry of expensive defense precautions along the coastline further reducing Edward's ability to make war on France from the continent.
The furthest reaches of the English coast, at Devon and Cornwall refused to supply any materials or money for the war for the remainder of the year, insisting they needed their resources to defend themselves.
The campaign at sea resumed in September 1338, when a large French and Italian fleet descended on the Channel Islands once again under Robert VIII Bertrand de Bricquebec, Marshal of France.
The scenes of Portsmouth were repeated as the entire town was razed to the ground, thousands of pounds worth of goods and shipping took back to France, and captives massacred or taken as slaves.
The English soon heard of this development, Morley taking his fleet to the French coast, burning the towns of Ault and Le Tréport and foraging inland, ravaging several villages and provoking a panic to mirror that at Southampton the year before.
The following year, however, a naval operation would have a significant effect on the war and provide the first major clash of arms when the English and French fleets met at the battle of Sluys.