Early in 2020, Vescovo was taking part in a scientific mission with a Filipino oceanographer. They became the first people to dive to the bottom of the Philippine Trench. "It just so happened that a day north of there is the battlefield off Samar," he says. "I"ve been a "military historian" since I was a small child and I was also in the US Navy for 20 years, so I knew a lot about the battle. I thought it would be an interesting attempt to try and find the wreck."