After her conversion to a seaplane tender, the code was formed by three katakana written characters ノ ト ロ (no to ro).

She was completed as an oiler with a carrying capacity of 8,000 tons, but relatively shortly after her commission, it was decided to convert her into a seaplane tender.

[2] An explosion occurred on Notoro on 5 September 1931 when she was moored at the Port of Yokohama, causing 10 deaths, destroying aviation fuel tanks and damaging several E1Y1 seaplanes.

On the night of January 28 and 29, seaplanes from Notoro dropped flares to scare off the Chinese opposition.

The next day, Notoro, moored on the Yangtze River, sent several of her E1Y3 seaplanes against targets in Shanghai.

[2] On 11 May 1932, Notoro was reassigned to the Combined Fleet, and on 25 May the aircraft complement was changed to include three-seater seaplanes E5K / E5Y.

[2] On 2 October 1937 Notoro received the second half of the E8N2 seaplanes from the 23rd Reconnaissance Group, which were delivered to the shores of South China by the submarine tender Taigei.

That morning, Notoro sent out five of its E8N2s, to which were added eight E8N2s from Kinugasa Maru to attack Nanxiong (in the northern Guangdong province).

During the battle, several E8Ns were damaged, with two (including one from Notoro) crashing on the way back with the loss of their crews.

Another damaged E8N2 (tailcode 13-1) from Notoro, which was hit a total of 138 times, returned with a dead observer on board and was written off after an emergency landing.

[2] The planned invasion of the Southwest Pacific created the need for the Imperial Japanese Navy to transport oil from future occupied territories in the Dutch East Indies to Japan.

On 9 January 1943 Notoro became the target of a submarine attack by USS Gar in the Makassar Strait, she was hit by at least two of the three fired torpedoes.

[2] On the evening of 25 June 1944, Notoro sailed as part of the convoy MISHI-03 from Miri, Borneo, to Singapore.