The missionary problem in the South Seas Archipelago, which we have mentioned several times before, was as follows.
When the First World War broke out in Europe in August 1914, Japan joined Britain and the other Allies in declaring war on Germany.
The first attack was on Tsingtao, which Germany had leased from China. The Germans had Europeanised the city on Jiaozhou Bay on China's Shandong Peninsula and turned it into a major fortress city for their expansion into the East.
At the request of their allies, the British, the Japanese decided to attack Qingdao in the hope of stopping the German fleet.
The Germans had a garrison of about 5,000 men in Qingdao, but they were unable to reinforce them due to the battles with Britain and France on the European front. The Japanese attacked with an army of about 28,000 and the Germans surrendered on 7 November.
They also used their momentum to attack the South Sea archipelago, which was the territory of Germany. These included Micronesia, the Caroline Islands, Palau, the Marianas (such as Saipan), and the Marshall Islands.
These islands were also occupied by military force with little resistance. A temporary naval force, the South Sea Islands Defence Force, was set up and a military government was established.
In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles officially recognised Japan's possession of the islands as a League of Nations mandate, and the South Seas Agency was established in Koror, Palau, to administer the islands.
However, a major problem arose.
Most of the South Seas archipelago had been Spanish territory until the end of the 19th century, when it was taken over by Germany.
As a result, most of the inhabitants were Christian, even Catholic. More than a century later, most of them are still Christians.
However, the Japanese military regime had little understanding of Christianity and expelled the German missionaries from the archipelago.
This left the inhabitants without a spiritual home, and security was deteriorating.
Furthermore, when the Peace Conference in Paris recognised Japan's sovereignty over the archipelago, the European countries criticised the expulsion of the missionaries and demanded improvements.
After much deliberation, the Japanese government, particularly the Ministry of the Navy, decided to negotiate with the papacy, the headquarters of Catholicism, the Vatican.
They felt that they had no choice but to ask the Vatican to send missionaries to relieve the fears of the population and to respond to the criticism of the European countries.
This was a time before the Crown Prince (Emperor Showa) visited the Vatican and had a friendly meeting with the Pope. Japan had no contact with the Vatican, except for purely ceremonial events, and there was no point of contact.
So the task fell to Yamamoto, one of the few Catholic naval officers with a good command of French and Italian, and a good understanding of the Pope and the Vatican bureaucracy.
Yamamoto himself was somewhat bewildered by his role, saying in Catholic magazine that he was "presented to the papacy in a formal and informal way".
Japan, "the world's foremost power", was forced to “ leave the all work” its diplomacy to a naval captain. That was a reality of politics.
