In September 1941, he became the Commandant of Toyohashi Reserve Officers' Cadet School. However, due to the death of Major General Tomitarō Horii the Kokoda Track campaign in New Guinea, Oda was assigned as his replacement as Commander of the South Seas Detachment. However, the South Seas Detachment found itself flanked by Allied forces and in a location where neither reinforcements or supplies could reach. When ordered to withdraw by IJA 18th Army headquarters, Oda left behind the sick and wounded and led his men to the banks of the Kumusi River, only to find out that all of the remaining boats when he had planned on for his retreat had been taken by troops which had preceded him. He committed suicide on the river bank by shooting himself with his pistol.