In January 1942, his unit covered landings at Balikpapan on Borneo during the Invasion of Dutch East Indies, and then moved its base of operations there after the airfield was captured by ground forces.

In late August 1942, he led Combat Air Patrol (CAP) over the IJN carrier force during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons.

Following the battle, his squadron was temporarily sent to a newly built airfield on Buka in the Solomon Islands, where he led several missions to Guadalcanal, before they rejoined the carrier.

During the attack on USN carriers, he and his Zero fighters descended to a lower altitude and closer to the enemy ships in order to draw the anti-aircraft fire away from the friendly dive bombers.

Neither they were able to encounter any USN Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters, however, they later found a PBY Catalina flying boat and badly damaged it.

In August they were transported to Indian Ocean area by carrier Jun'yō, where they operated from land bases in Dutch East Indies and on Andaman and Nicobar Islands.