[2] His father, Wong Fook On,[3] was a Chinese immigrant[4] who used the name William Hope in dealings with white Americans.

[4] Henry Hope Wong attended the Couch Grammar School,[1] and began working "even earlier than the law would allow a Caucasian to labor for pay.

"[2] Wong was interested in planes from a young age, and began saving his wages towards a career in aviation.

"[1] Wong planned to study at the American School of Aviation in Chicago, but his father believed flying was too dangerous.

At the age of sixteen,[7] Wong enrolled in the Beam School of Aviation in Celilo, Oregon.

"[8] He claimed to have had only one accident in training, when a ground wire broke as he was preparing to take off and caused the plane to flip over.

[8] At the age of seventeen, he graduated with high honors[8] and was awarded a diploma "as a regular aviator.

"After graduating, Wong applied to the United States Signal Corps, but was rejected because he was under eighteen.

"After finishing work on the H.W., Wong showed the plane in "an automobile salesroom on Broadway and Burnside Streets".

crashed into the ground nose-first, breaking the propeller and tail, splintering the body, and trapping Wong under the wreckage.

W.R. Cheadle, who worked with Wong on the H.W., blamed the crash on the roughness of the ground at Mock's Bottom:[10]"Because of this, he said, Wong was obliged to rise before he had attained enough headway on the ground, climbed at a 45-degree angle and found he had insufficient power to keep going on such an abrupt ascent.

The machine struck directly on its running gear, said Cheadle, bending the axle and causing the fusilage to break in two when the momentum doubled over the plane's tail."