[Jack Hydrazine]

So the book and the movie are loosely based on historical events?

[DoodleDawg]

So the book and the movie are loosely based on historical events?

No. The story is made up. The classes of submarines and a lot of the ships actually named were not.

[C19fan]

There was an episode of a Soviet surface ship unsuccessfully trying to defect:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_frigate_Storozhevoy