She was laid down on 29 August 1938 at the Nagasaki shipyard of Mitsubishi Shipbuilding & Engineering for the benefit of the Nippon Yusen K.K.

[4] Work was completed on 5 September 1941 and she was registered in the Maizuru Naval District with aircraft code IB-xx and call sign JGBN.

[4] On 2 December 1941, she arrived at Takao, Taiwan[1] where she was outfitted with 8 x E8N2 "Dave" two-seat float biplanes[4] from the Tōkō Naval Air Group.

The destroyer Tachikaze (with a platoon of the Yokosuka SNLF) proceeded to occupy Calayan Island also meeting no resistance.

[4] Six of her planes were damaged beyond repair due to rough sea conditions and the seaplane base at Camiguin Island was abandoned.

[4] She then departed for newly occupied Vigan, Luzon arriving on 21 December 1941 where she helped to establish a seaplane base with fellow seaplane tender Sanyo Maru contributing her 6 F1Ms along with 6 F1Ms and an Aichi E13A "Jake" from the Sanyo Maru and 3 Kawanishi E7K "Alf"s from light cruisers Naka and Natori.

[4] After arriving at Davao on the same day, the harbor was attacked by six Netherlands Naval Aviation Service Dornier Do 24 flying boats (squadrons GVT-2 and GVT-5) which damaged the station tanker Tonan Maru No.

[11] After the successful occupation of Jolo, she returned to Davao and on 6 January 1942, she docked off the west coast of Samal Island.

[1] On 7 January 1942, Sanuki Maru and her fellow seaplane tender Sanyo Maru, provided air cover for the Tarakan invasion convoy which carried the 56th Mixed Infantry Group of Major General Sakaguchi Shizuo (jp:坂口静夫) (known as the Sakaguchi brigade) and the Kure No.

[4] Although the Dutch commander ordered the destruction of oil installations in Balikpapan, it was not completed with the only serious damage done was to tanks, pipes and special quays in the harbor area.

[4] On 28 January 1945, while en route to Takao, U.S. submarines Spadefish and Pompon located the convoy in the Yellow Sea northeast of Shanghai.

[4] Although two nighttime attacks by Pompon were unsuccessful, it occupied the convoy's escorts enabling Spadefish to draw close and fire three torpedoes at the Sanuki Maru all of which hit sinking her at 33°55′N 122°55′E / 33.917°N 122.917°E / 33.917; 122.917.