The ship was named after the Tone River, in the Kantō region of Japan and was completed on 20 November 1938 at Mitsubishi's Nagasaki shipyards.

She was involved in sinking the destroyer USS Edsall in the Java Sea, before escorting aircraft carriers at the Indian Ocean Raid and battles of Midway, Eastern Solomons, and Santa Cruz throughout 1942.

In 1944, Tone sank the British steamship Behar, and commit a war crime when anywhere between 60 and 80 civilians were murdered aboard the ship.

At 0630, Tone and Chikuma each launched short-range Nakajima E4N2 Type 90-2 Reconnaissance Seaplane to act as pickets and patrol south of the Striking Force.

During the subsequent attack, the battleships Arizona, Oklahoma, West Virginia and California were sunk and Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Maryland and many smaller ships were damaged.

By 14 January 1942, CruDiv 8 was based out of Truk in the Caroline Islands, and covered the landings of Japanese troops at Rabaul, New Britain as well as attacks on Lae and Salamaua, New Guinea.

At the crucial Battle of Midway, Tone and CruDiv 8 was part of Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo's Carrier Striking Force.

Tone's floatplane discovered American ships, but owing to internal bureaucracy in their command structure its report was not immediately delivered to Admiral Nagumo.

With the US invasion of Guadalcanal, Chikuma and Tone were ordered south again on 16 August with the aircraft carriers Shōkaku, Zuikaku, Zuihō, Jun'yō, Hiyō and Ryūjō.

The following morning, a Consolidated PBY Catalina spotted Ryūjō, which Douglas SBD Dauntlesses and Grumman TBF Avengers from Enterprise unsuccessfully attacked.

Through October, Chikuma and Tone patrolled north of the Solomon Islands, awaiting word of recapture of Henderson Field by the Japanese.

However, on 17 May, Chikuma and Tone were tasked to accompany battleship Musashi back to Tokyo for the state funeral of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.

From July to November, Tone was engaged in making troop transport runs to Rabaul, and to patrols of the Marshall Islands in unsuccessful pursuit of the American fleet.

On 23 October 1944, Tone along with the cruisers Kumano, Suzuya and Chikuma, sortied from Brunei towards the Philippines with Admiral Takeo Kurita's First Mobile Striking Force.

[3] At 8:18, Tone joined the heavy cruiser Haguro in attacking the escort carrier USS Kalinin Bay, which from 18,000 yards, they successfully hit with three 8-inch (203 mm) shells.

After Haguro was forced to disengage after being hit by two bombs and two 5-inch (127 mm) shells from Kalinin Bay, destroying her forward superfiring turret, Tone switched fire to the attacking destroyer USS Heermann, firing thirty 8-inch (203 mm) rounds and four torpedoes, straddling Heermann several times and forcing her to turn away.

[3][4][5][6] With three heavy cruisers sunk and a fourth crippled, Admiral Kurita ordered a retreat from the battle, prompting Tone to disengage Taffy 3.

While retreating, Tone was hit by two bombs from carrier aircraft, one was a dud, but the other disabled her steering wheel, forcing her crew to manually control the rudder.

Back in dry dock in Maizuru, Tone gained four additional triple-mount 25-mm AA guns aft, bringing its total to 62.

On 24 July 1945, Task Force 38 launched a large air raid against Kure aimed at the final destruction of the Imperial Japanese Navy.