The Atsuta powered only two models of Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS) aircraft in World War II.

The IJNAS's Atsuta and its IJAAS cousin, the Ha-40 were based on the engine that powered Germany's Messerschmitt Bf 109E fighter.

[3] It was the Imperial Japanese Navy's common practice to use a coded designation while an engine was in experimental or pre-production status.

[4] By early 1938 the Japanese Navy had also acquired the German He 118 V4 two-seat dive bomber aircraft, along with its production rights.

The Heinkel's spectacular performance impressed the IJN Naval Staff so much that the design of the Yokosuka D4Y Suisei (Allied reporting name "Judy") carrier based dive bomber evolved from it.

The success of both airplanes was attributed to the slender lines of the high powered liquid-cooled engine.

[3] A new top-secret aircraft that was to be transported and launched from a large submarine was ordered by the IJN in the spring of 1942 as the 17-Shi Special Attack Bomber.

[3] Aichi manufactured 873 Atsuta series engines during World War II.

Such a modification was not possible for the Aichi M6A1 Seiran as it could only use the liquid-cooled inverted-vee type engine, in order to fit into I-400-class submarine's confined hangar, becoming the only Japanese airplane that retained the inverted-vee engine installation through to the end of the war.

[3] Postwar evaluation by the US Air Technical Service Command's Foreign Aircraft Evaluation Centre for the Air Force (located at Wright Field and Freeman Army Airfield) found the Atsuta engine's standard of workmanship was not as good as that of the Army's Kawasaki Ha-40, and far worse than Mitsubishi and Nakajima.