The cruise began at Sasebo and took him to the ports of Osaka, Shimizu, Maizuru, Incheon, Zhenhai, Dalian, Lushun, Weihaiwei and Qingdao.

After the Kawachi was sunk in a magazine explosion on 12 July 1918, he rejoined the Haruna on 15 August before joining the cruiser Azuma as a supplementary guidance officer on 9 November.

On 25 August 1938, he was given command of the seaplane carrier Kamoi, and rose to the rank of a section chief at the Naval General Staff headquarters by 1940.

In November, Matsuda commanded the Fourth Carrier Division, comprising the Hyūga and the battleship Ise, and sailed them to Singapore to reinforce the remaining naval elements in the Southwest Pacific.

In early February, the two ships and their escorts received orders to return to Japan with much-needed supplies of oil, fuel and minerals.

Despite American foreknowledge of the mission and several attempts to sink the ships with submarine and air attacks, all the vessels in the force returned to Japan with their valuable cargoes.

In March 1945, Matsuda was appointed commander of the Yokosuka Naval Air Group, a position he held at the time of Japan's surrender.

[1] He was interrogated by U.S. Navy officers, who found him a "cooperative and agreeable witness, and his testimony was considered generally accurate, although there was perhaps some effort at self justification in the account of the movements of Ise and Hyuga on the night of 24–25 October."