Leon William Shapley,
(Medic with 45th Division in Anzio, Italy
1944)
The departure of close friends and neighbors also left the Jensen family
with the gravest of fears. One of the many friends who became part of
the family circle was Leon William Shapley, known simply as “Shap.” A
charismatic, middle-aged man, he was liked by everyone. Because he was
interested romantically in Ruth Jensen, the family saw him on a frequent
basis, and hoped that he would soon be part of the Jensen clan.
Unfortunately, on the
morning of April 16, 1944, Leon Shapley was killed on the banks of a
half-empty, four-foot deep drainage canal on the southern edge of
“It was a sunny morning,” reminisced a former medic. “The smell of mint growing along the edges of the canal was in the air.”
German artillery began one of their daily barrages from the nearby Alban Hills located some sixteen-miles away. The other medic scrambled for cover, while Shap remained standing, seemingly unaware of the danger from enemy shelling. As one incoming eighty-eight round was ripped apart above the two men, a piece of shrapnel pierced Shapley’s spleen. As the aid station doctor and the other medic worked frantically to save Shap’s life among the flowering mint, the mortally wounded man, still very much conscious, gave a rather unusual reason for his behavior: “Half smiling, Shap stated, “I heard the artillery round coming all the way in. I was too lazy to duck.”
After having survived so
much in the Italian Campaign—
Ruth Eleanor Jensen, May 21, 1944
I am heart-broken over Shap. He was such a swell person. He wanted to give me a ring in one of his last letters. A person doesn’t know there is a war on until it comes home to you. Maybe, the war will be over soon and you all [the Jensen boys] can all come back home, but it worries me terribly. I only wish Shap were also. I can’t allow it to get me down too much, but no one will ever know how I feel about it. It seems like a nightmare to me.
Ruth Jensen in Denver, Colorado (1942)