Radio Normandie

Captain Leonard Frank Plugge (21 September 1889 – 19 February 1981) was a British businessman and Conservative Party politician.

Plugge was educated at the University of Brussels and University College London, where he graduated with a degree in civil engineering in 1915. In the First World War, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and in 1918 transferred to the Royal Air Force, where he became a captain. He stayed with the air force until 1921, and in the same year was elected a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

Plugge was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Chatham in 1935, defeating the Labour candidate Hugh Gaitskell by a majority of 5,897 votes. He lost in 1945 to Arthur Bottomley, a future Minister of Overseas Development in Harold Wilson's first administration.

Captain Plugge was the only son of Frank Plugge (1864 – 1946), a commercial clerk, and his wife, Mary Chase (1862 – 1924). His father was a Belgian of Dutch descent. He married (Gertrude) Ann Muckleston (13 January 1909 – 1993) in New York on 28 October 1935, a little over two weeks before he was elected to the House of Commons. They had three children: Leonard Frank (b. 13 January 1937), Greville (4 November 1944 – 1973) and Gale Ann (4 November 1944 – 2 January 1972). Plugge and his wife separated in the early 1950s.

Plugge created the International Broadcasting Company in 1931 as a commercial rival to the British Broadcasting Corporation by buying airtime from radio stations such as those of Normandy, Toulouse, Ljubljana, Juan les Pins, Paris, Poste Parisien, Athlone, Barcelona, Madrid and Rome. IBC worked indirectly with Radio Luxembourg until 1936. World War II silenced most of Plugge's stations between 1939 and 1945.

...
Wikipedia