How Roy Rogers solved the mystery of the Japanese sniper in John Wayne's "Fighting Seabees"

"The Fighting Seabees" (1944)

One photo I didn't put up when I blogged last summer about the John Wayne World War II movie "The Fighting Seabees" was this shot of a Japanese soldier using a diagonal crack in a rock as a sniper's perch.

"The Roy Rogers Show" (1952)

I didn't post the shot because I couldn't figure out where it was taken. But with some help from Roy Rogers, the mystery is now solved. Roy peers through the same crack in an early episode of "The Roy Rogers Show" called "The Train Robbery," filmed in 1951 and first aired Feb. 3, 1952.

Sniper's crack, on a recent visit to the Lower Iverson

Thanks to the context in the "Roy Rogers" episode, I was able to determine that the crack is part of a heavily filmed movie rock that I call Hangdog. The tricky thing about both the "Fighting Seabees" shot and the "Roy Rogers" shot above is that they feature the rarely seen "back side" of the rock.

"The Train Robbery" ("The Roy Rogers Show")

This is what the sniper's crack area looks like from the much more heavily filmed "front side" of the rock — its west side. In the "Roy Rogers" episode, Roy climbs on top of Hangdog to get a drop on the bad guys.

A portion of the crack is visible near the legs of the two bad guys. The section of Hangdog shown in this shot is just a fraction of the massive rock feature.

The rock, including the sniper's crack, remains intact today on the Lower Iverson Ranch. This recent photo of Hangdog shows the same section of the rock seen in the "Roy Rogers" shot.

The sniper's crack area is located at the north end of the rock.

This is what the rest of Hangdog looks like in modern times. The photo shows the west-facing side of the rock.

Hangdog today is on private property, and access is difficult. The rock is positioned near the southeast corner of the Cal West Townhomes, separated from the condo community by a brick wall.