Also now you made me want to read the book! or even better, some of the Russian naval historians if that's possible, the story is so horribly compelling

I'm happy to be a vector! There seems to have been an English-language tie-in book that incorporated at least some of Zateyev's memoirs, so that's on my radar now. If I'm lucky, there's a complete published translation, and it certainly sounds like interviews could have been conducted with the survivors in the early '90's when the story broke. I can only cross my fingers someone collected the songs.