When full-scale war started for Japan on 8 December, the division, reinforced by the battleships and and the light carrier , sortied from Hashirajima to the Bonin Islands as distant support for the 1st Air Fleet attacking Pearl Harbor, and returned six days later. Captain Chiaki Matsuda relieved Ishizaki on 20 February 1942. Together with the rest of the 2nd Battleship Division, "Hyūga" pursued but did not catch the American carrier force that had launched the Doolittle Raid on 18 April.