Gunshots on board

[Robert M. Himmelsbach]

I've recently re-read the article on Gunshots on Board, and a thought occured to me. Mr. Lowe reported that there was a "crowd of wild Italians" or some such that had to be fended off with gunfire.
Here's where my odd thought comes in; there weren't a lot of Italians on board...among the passengers. But there were quite a few Italians among the restaurant crew.
Accepted wisdom is that the restaurant crew, cut off from the "action" by language barriers and their "neither fish nor fowl" status; neither crew nor passengers, stuck together and almost universally perished.
My thought is that perhaps a group, bound together by their common language, may have grown tired of waiting and made a rush for a lifeboat and were repelled; which would give a somewhat better explanation than the restaurant staff passively awaiting their fate, lost and forgotten.
Of course, we can never know, but this does seem a more logical possibility, to me at any rate.
Any thoughts?

 

[Peter Engberg-Klarström]

Dear Robert, many of the people talking about 'Italians' don't actually mean 'from Italy', but rather 'of Mediterranean looks' or something to that effect. I have a feeling anyone from the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea could have been labeled 'Italian' or indeed even 'French' at the time, which, of course, broadens the perspective quite a bit.

Best regards,

Peter

Peter

 

[Robert M. Himmelsbach]

Peter: Agreed, but that still doesn't change the hypothosis. Of the restaurant staff, those who weren't Italian by birth were (largely) French.
Granted that in the excitement no one was in a position to determine the exact nationality, and were likely to attribute language and nationalities to their own prejudices (viz.: Mr.Lowe's description of the rescued Chinese sailor as "Japanese")nonetheless, it seems to me that a crowd of (mainly) young men shouting in some foreign language rushing one of the lifeboats could reasonably be attributed to the restaurant staff.
But we'll never know.

 

[Peter Engberg-Klarström]

Dear Robert; I am quite sure the restaurant staff weren't locked in during the night, since quite a few of them were recovered and identified afterwards. I haven't got the exact numbers in front of me right now, but I believe 25 or 30% of them were recovered.
To my knowledge, the only incident when men tried to rush a lifeboat occurred at boats 12 and 14, where AB Scarrott had to 'use some persuasion with a boat tiller' and Lowe fired in the air. AB Poingdestre at No 12 also testified to this effect. Do you think the restaurant employees were involved?
I know it has been rumoured that men tried to rush boat 15 as well, but nobody in that boat describes anything to that effect at all (that I know of), quite on the contrary, really. The Scandinavian men who entered the boat all describe how calm everything and everybody was. Steward Rule said, however that 'there was a bit of a rush' when it was stated that all the men near the boat might enter it, but more than that....no...


Best regards,

Peter

 

[Jan Kite]

Mr Lowe wrote an apology at the Italian governments request and thereafter were said to be of'mediteranian looks' Jan BTS