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with him in Sweden.
In May the Jannus Brothers company signed a contract with the Toledo Railway & Light Company of Toledo, Ohio, to operate a Flying Boat for two months, starting July 1st at Toledo Beach Resort on Lake Erie. Reportedly they had received some orders for their new flying boat [[strikethrough]] and [[/strikethrough]]. The first one was shipped to W.E. Detroit, Michigan, on April 28th, and Tony went there to supervise the assembly and demonstrate it. Then, for some unknown reason, about June 1st Tony joined the Curtiss-Toronto Company. Rodger fulfilled the summer contract at Toledo, giving daily exhibitions and carrying passengers. They also advertised a flying school there that summer. The Jannus brothers venture was evidently dissolved at the completion of the Toledo contract. About this time Rodger also did some writing for the aviation magazines, advocating the use of flying for forest patrol, forest fire spotting and other public services. After completing the Toledo Beach assignment Rodger returned to the Benoist Company at St. Louis where he did some flight testing of new planes, including the large twin-motored Model C biplane flying boat [[strikethrough]] of [[/strikethrough]] with a 65 ft. span using two 100 m.p. Roberts engines. It was flown with seven passengers and had a top speed of about 70 mph. Reportedly this flying boat was taken to Florida that winter for the passenger carrying season.
During the spring of 1916 Rodger did some more exhibition work with his Benoist boat and on May 24th had a smash-up at Detroit, Michigan, when he crashed in the Detroit River carrying D.M. Parker as a passenger,, but they were not injured. That summer the war clouds of World War I were thickening in Europe, and American [[strikethrough]] aeroplane [[/strikethrough]] airplane manufacturers were finding a market there for their planes, so Rodger went overseas for a time that fall and early winter. After returning to the United States he became an instructor at the Curtiss Flying School at Miami, Florida, where he remained until June, 1917, when he enlisted in the Aviation Section, Signal Corps Reserve and was sent to Ithaca, New York, for duty at the Thomas-Morse Aircraft Co. On July 26 [[strikethrough]] th [[/strikethrough]], 1917, he was appointed First Lieutenant and on September 4th was detailed to Selfridge Field, Mt. Clemens, Michigan. Re-