She spent most of the Pacific War on escort duties in Japanese waters before she became an anti-submarine training ship in 1944.

The Minekaze class was designed with higher speed and better seakeeping than the preceding Kawakaze-class destroyers.

The turbines were designed to produce 38,500 shaft horsepower (28,700 kW), which would propel the ships at 39 knots (72 km/h; 45 mph).

[7] On commissioning, Sawakaze was teamed with sister ships Minekaze, Okikaze, and Yakaze at the Sasebo Naval District to form Destroyer Division 2 under the Second Fleet.

From 1935 to December 1938, Sawakaze was assigned to the Tateyama Naval Air Base as a search and rescue craft, and was scheduled to be retired at the end of 1938; however with the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the destroyer was kept on active status, and assigned to the Yokosuka Naval District.

The destroyer was reassigned to Yokosuka from March 1942 and assigned anti-submarine patrols of the entrance of Tokyo Bay for the duration of the war, making only an occasional convoy escort run along the coast of Japan to Muroran, Hokkaidō or Kobe.

From May 1945, Sawakaze served as a target vessel for the 1st Tokko Air Corps suicide flights.