Justin (#9614),
Let me, as (one of the) Grand Old Men of this incomparable Thread, one of the oldest and deservedly most popular on Military Aviation Forum, welcome you aboard ! As you can see from my Callsign, I too went over to start on the Arnold Scheme in September, 1941, and graduated as a Sgt-Pilot in March 1942.
My story here begins on Page 114, Post 2462, and you can wade through it, but p.119, #2373, might be of more interest as relates to the said Birmingham (ALA).
As to your questions,
...can I conclude that Paul also graduated from course 42G?...
Well, 42C graduated March '42, 42D April, 42E May, 42F June, 42 G July, 42H August - so you're in the right ballpark.
...Nicola Bate (arnold-scheme.org) has of course told me that very few graduates gained a commission unless they stayed on to instruct for a year...
True, these would be employed in the Six British Flying Training Schools which the US had built for us in the Southern States. These were RAF commanded and administered, flying instruction at first by US civilians, to be replaced by RAF "creamies" from the Arnold output.
...The other perplexing aspect of this story is how he came to meet and befriend the teenager with whom he later corresponded. The girl was apparently at a boarding school in Birmingham, Alabama - not exactly round the corner from Montgomery...
Birmingham to Montgomery is 93 miles by road: the young lady would cetainly have a car, and that distance is peanuts to an American girl. ("School" probably means "College").
My guess would be that she lived in Montgomery anyway, came home at weekends, and she (or most likely, her mother) had put her name down as a Pen Friend, seeking to get in touch with these glamourous young Brits who were now, of course, their Gallant Allies since Pearl Harbor. Sadly I (at nearby Gunter Field) had no such luck. (C'ést la vie !)
Moncton was the Transit Camp where you waited for the boat home.
In Harrogate he would have been billeted in the requisitioned "Majestic" Hotlel.
Which'll do to be going on with.
Anything you can put in here about Paul would interest us,
Danny42C.