In April and May 1941, "Fusō" and "Yamashiro" were attached to the 2nd Division of the 1st Fleet, but the two ships spent most of the war around Japan, mostly at the anchorage at Hashirajima in Hiroshima Bay. When the war started for Japan on 8 December, the division sortied from Hashirajima to the Bonin Islands as distant support for the 1st Air Fleet attacking Pearl Harbor, and returned six days later. On 18 April 1942, they pursued but did not catch the American carrier force that had launched the Doolittle Raid. Commanded by Vice-Admiral Shirō Takasu, the division set sail with the Aleutian Support Group on 28 May, at the same time that most of the Imperial Fleet began an attack on Midway Island (Operation MI).