Century-old photos pose a war puzzle

Intriguing photographs have surfaced of a young woman wearing the uniform of a New Zealand military officer in the Somme region of northern France where the horrendous battle of World War I was fought.

Her identity is not known. In one of four photographs which are almost 100 years old, the woman, wearing the distinctive "lemon-squeezer" New Zealand military hat, salutes while holding a cane in front of a tree in a walled garden. In contrast with the usual battlefield pictures, she is standing in a relaxed setting outside a house with shuttered windows.

The woman, who wears a wedding ring, is shown both in uniform and wearing a blouse and skirt, in the four grainy black and white glass negatives found in the village of Hallencourt, which was a base behind the lines during the 1916 battle....