Warburton-Lee attended the British Army's Staff College, Camberley, from 1931 to 1932, where Brian Horrocks, later a lieutenant general and a corps commander, was among his fellow students.

Horrocks wrote that it "was the practice for a naval officer to join the course for the final year, and our sailor turned out to be that remarkable all-rounder Warburton-Lee who won the V.C.

[2] In 1936, due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and because there was fear of social unrest in the naval station, the Foreign Office in London organized a ship to repatriate the remaining British citizens and on 22 July 1936 HMS Witch, captained by Warburton-Lee, departed from Ferrol in northwestern Spain for Britain.

This attack was successful, but was almost immediately followed by an engagement with five more German destroyers, during which Captain Warburton-Lee was mortally wounded by a shell which hit Hardy's bridge.

[4] Bernard Warburton-Lee's VC citation reads as follows: For gallantry, enterprise and daring in command of the force engaged in the First Battle of Narvik, on 10th April, 1940.