Britain joins forces with the Soviet Union
After an audience with Pope Pius XI at the Holy See, Yamamoto visited France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, countries that Emperor Showa had visited when he was Crown Prince more than 20 years before, as well as Spain, where civil war was still raging.
In France, he made use of the personal connections he had built since the Crown Prince's visit to Europe, appealing Japan's position in radio broadcasts and lectures.
In the Netherlands, the issue of the Dutch East Indies, the so-called Netherlands-Indonesia (now Indonesia), became a topic of discussion.
Many Dutch people believed that Japan would eventually come for the Dutch Indies in search of oil, and no matter how much Japan tried to explain that it had no such intentions, they would not accept it. However, when Yamamoto told the Navy Minister and other Catholic government officials, they agreed to the idea.
However, in February 1942, the Japanese army paratroopers raided the oil fields in Palembang, Sumatra, and occupied the whole of Orchid Island in less than a month. The purpose was to "liberate" the oil-rich Dutch Indies as well as French Indochina (French Indo-China) from the domination of the European powers and obtain oil, but in the end, it turned out to be a betrayal of the Netherlands.
The next country visited was England, where the Anglican Church was the state religion and Catholics were in the minority. Furthermore, at this point in time, the British were claiming that the papacy was complicit in the invasion of Ethiopia by Italy's Mussolini, and the country as a whole was strongly against Catholicism. In addition, Winston Churchill and other British conservatives were willing to join hands with Stalin's Soviet Communist Party in order to devote themselves to the destruction of Nazi Germany.
For this reason, the Catholic Yamamoto's preaching of Japan's "anti-communist policy" was not expected to have much effect. With the advice of his friends in the area that it would be better to leave Britain alone for a while, thus he left and went to Ireland.
It may have been Yamamoto's regret that he could not convey Japan's position at all to Britain, which had been a former ally and had given him a warm welcome when the Crown Prince visited Europe.
Yamamoto's world tour took him from Ireland to Portugal and then across the Atlantic Ocean to Brazil. The Japanese ambassador to Brazil was Setsuzo Sawada, who was a fellow attendant of Yamamoto and the Crown Prince's visit to Europe, and with whom Yamamoto had a family relationship since then.
Yamamoto teamed up with Sawada again and visited influential people in Brazil.
Even today, Brazil is a country where more than 70% of the population is Catholic. Moreover, there are many immigrants from Japan.
Yamamoto learned that many Japanese immigrants had been baptized as Catholics, and were welcomed by Brazilians and favorably impressed by Japan. For example, in the large city of Sao Paulo, 5,000 of the approximately 200,000 Japanese had become Catholics. Yamamoto left Brazil as if relieved.
