Hugh Wingo was born in August 1918 in South Carolina. When he was 13 years old, they moved to North Carolina. He lived there until he joined the Navy. His father died when he was nine years old. His mother raised him and his little brother by herself. [Annotator’s Note: Wingo had an older sister.] Wingo tried several jobs. He quit school. His mother thought he should change schools. He went to school in Cincinnati, Ohio for a while. At 15 years old, he tried to be the man of the house. He tried to get a job at a local textile mill. In 1939, he wanted to join the Coast Guard. He ended up signing up for the Navy instead. He was refused at first because he did not weigh enough. Then he went to Norfolk, Virginia for training.

Hugh Wingo attended boot camp for eight weeks. They got their first liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] after a couple of weeks and then went into Norfolk [Annotator’s Note: Norfolk, Virginia]. After training, he got to go home for ten days. Wingo was assigned as a mess cook. Then they would be assigned to different departments. Wingo wanted to be on a destroyer in the Pacific. They were sent to Galveston, Texas to be transferred. They boarded a destroyer to head out of Galveston. Three days in a storm cured Wingo from being seasick. They spent a few months in Galveston. The Germans were marching through France at this time.

Hugh Wingo was stationed in Galveston [Annotator’s Note: Galveston, Texas] for three or four months. They got the news that they were being transferred to San Diego [Annotator’s Note: San Diego, California] and this meant that they were going to go through the Canal [Annotator's Note: the Panama Canal, a manmade canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in between North and South America]. A lot of the ships moved from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] became his post office home. They were training there. They learned how to refuel at sea and how to take on ammunition at sea. They practiced firing the guns. Wingo was in the gunnery department. They were a well-trained ship. When Pearl Harbor was attacked [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], the USS Enterprise was loaded with fighter planes heading to Wake Island [Annotator’s Note: a coral atoll between Hawaii and Japan]. Wingo was on a destroyer that was assigned to protect the carriers. They were heading back to Pearl Harbor a couple of days before the attack. Admiral Halsey [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey] was in charge of the group. He told them they would wait until Monday to go into the harbor. On Sunday morning, 7 December 1941, they got word of the attack. They could not get close to Pearl Harbor because there were fires still going on. There were three to four inches of oil in the water. Wingo was sent to a depot to get new ammunition. They would go out in the mornings and fire depth charges [Annotator's Note: also called a depth bomb; an anti-submarine explosive munition resembling a metal barrel or drum] to sink submarines.

Hugh Wingo was shipped to Tokyo, Japan. The carrier was in San Diego [Annotator’s Note: San Diego, California] picking up planes. [Annotator’s Note: Wingo is referring to the Doolittle Raid, also known as the Tokyo Raid, which was an air raid on 18 April 1942 by the United States on the Japanese capital Tokyo and other places on Honshu during World War II]. The planes practiced for months landing on a carrier at sea. They were on their way to join the USS Enterprise [Annotator’s Note: USS Enterprise (CV-6). They helped protect the planes on the way to Tokyo, and then headed back to the United States. On the way back, they were hit by a storm. A wave was so big it caused the fire in the smokestacks to go out. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] got on the radio and told the world what they had done. The planes they escorted were successful.

Hugh Wingo was at Midway [Annotator’s Note: The Battle of Midway, 4 to 7 June 1942; Midway Island]. This was the next attempt to show that they could fight the Japanese. They were with the USS Yorktown [Annotator’s Note: USS Yorktown (CV-5). The Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] had beaten them to the USS Yorktown. They had to abandon the ship [Annotator’s Note: the Yorktown was sunk 7 June 1942]. Wingo had to bring the men onto their ship. There were 700 men topside. [Annotator’s Note: Wingo has official pictures of the sinking of the USS Yorktown.] It took them eight hours to transfer the 700 men.

Hugh Wingo and his unit trained at Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] for a while before they went to Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal, codenamed Operation Watchtower; 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943; Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands]. They were firing on the ridges of the islands. During the third battle, Halsey [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey] took over. He wanted to send the destroyers out at night. Wingo’s ship was sunk. After they got hit, the bow moved 15 feet back. No one was killed, but a lot of people were injured. One man went overboard. They were told to abandon the ship. Another ship picked them up and got all of them out of the water in about four hours. They started to fire at the Jap [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] submarine first, but the Japs hit them with one torpedo. They saw one torpedo jumping out of the water.