Double Agent Balloon: Dickie Metcalfe's Espionage Career for MI5 and the Nazis

Dickie Metcalfe was not your typical secret agent, but he was larger than life in more ways than one. Unlike many other agents who were part of the Double Cross System during the Second World War, he did not defect; nor was he blackmailed into becoming a spy. Instead, using his father’s connection with Sir Vernon Kell, the first Director of MI5, Metcalfe volunteered his services.

Recently cashiered from his infantry regiment, he had an ulterior motive – by supplying MI5 with tidbits of infor...