Wu Xinmou (Ou Sing-mo) was born in Jiangyin, a peaceful Chinese town in Jiangsu Province by the Yangtze River, on April 14 of 1910, his father was a teacher of history at a local school. Wu Xinmou received his school education in home town and entered the department of mathematics of National Central University in Nanjing where he was taught higher algebra, geometry and analysis by Professor He Lu, a French returned scholar. Having graduated from the Central University in 1932, Wu Xinmou taught at the department of mathematics as an assistant professor in Tsinghua University from 1934 to 1937, and became interested in differential equations under the influence of Professor Xiong Qinglai (Hiong King-lai), who owned French Doctorat d'Etat and  chaired the department from 1928 to 1937. Wu was sent to France at state expense in 1937, where he took at first H. Villat's class in viscous fluid mechanics and changed eventually his major to partial differential equations supervised by J. Hadamard. During his stay in France, as well as intensive academic researches, Wu Xinmou took part in the patriotic activities against Japanese invasion led by Chinese Communist Party, in particular he was editor of the journal Anti-Japanese News from Homeland since 1939. 
Wu joined Chinese Communist Party as a member of the branch sojourned in France led by Deng Fa and Liu Ning-Yi in 1945.