Ships
- IJN Hosho Captain from 1 December 1930 · Relieved on 14 November 1931
Eijiro Kondo was born on 12 September 1887 in Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture. As a third-year student at the local middle school he made his way to the harbor at Sakata without money for the fare, and the sea fixed the course of his life. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1908 and was commissioned an ensign in 1910. In the First World War he served in the Mediterranean with the Second Special Squadron. He completed the Naval War College in 1921 and afterward was stationed in the United States.
He was promoted to captain in November 1929 and moved into aviation commands. He served as special-duty captain of the seaplane carrier Notoro. On 1 December 1930 he took command of the aircraft carrier Hosho, relieving Hideho Wada. Completed in 1922, Hosho was the first carrier the Imperial Navy finished that had been designed as a carrier from the keel up, and she was still the ship on which the fleet practiced operating aircraft at sea. Earlier captains, among them Goro Hara, had already used her to settle the daily work of a carrier air group.
Kondo’s year in Hosho was given over to training and a long refit. In the spring of 1931 the ship left Sasebo for Yokosuka. From April into September she lay in dock at the Yokosuka Navy Yard while arresting gear was fitted so aircraft could be stopped on her short flight deck, and she returned to dock for further work in October. Rokuro Horie relieved him on 14 November 1931. Hosho went out to the fighting at Shanghai in January 1932 with Horie in command.
After Hosho, Kondo commanded the Tateyama Naval Air Group and then the fleet carriers Akagi and Kaga. Those appointments kept him in the part of the navy that was turning experimental flying decks into full carrier divisions. He later served as chief of staff of the Third Fleet and as commander of the Shanghai Naval Special Landing Force.
Promoted to rear admiral in 1936, he returned to operations after fighting spread in China in 1937. He led the 11th Squadron up the Yangtze in the drive inland. The squadron took part in the attack on Nanking and in the Wuhan campaign of 1938. He was placed on the reserve list in 1939, having reached the rank of vice admiral, and advised the Toa Kaiun shipping company.
In the wartime general election of 1942 he won a seat in the House of Representatives. He resigned that seat on 1 December 1945 and was afterward barred from public office. Kondo died on 27 December 1955.