"Tone" (利根) was part of the covering force for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and later that same month assisted in the second Battle of Wake Island. Subsequently, "Tone" was involved in operations in the Netherlands East Indies. In February 1942, it was part of the covering force for the carrier raid on Darwin, and in March accompanied the battleships and in the sinking of the destroyer . During March "Tone" participated in the strike by Admiral Nagumo's aircraft carrier force into the Indian Ocean and the attack on Ceylon. "Tone" returned to the Pacific for the Battle of Midway in May, and from the summer of 1942 was part of the Guadalcanal campaign. On 2 August 1942, "Tone" was damaged by aircraft from the carrier . In 1943, "Tone" patrolled in Solomon Islands theatre where it was damaged by an air raid on its base in Rabaul on 5 November. In the beginning of 1944, "Tone" participated in a strike into the Indian Ocean against Allied shipping on the Australia-Aden route. Later, "Tone" was in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and as part of Admiral Kurita's Center Force at the Battle of Leyte Gulf attacked US escort aircraft carriers. "Tone" was damaged by US aircraft in March 1945, after her return to home waters and was finally sunk by aircraft, near Kure, on 24 July 1945. She was raised postwar and broken up at Kure in 1948.