The army had other forces based in New Zealand and a Third Division fought in the Pacific until disbanded late in the war because of manpower shortages, but for most wartime Kiwis the Div was virtually the New Zealand Army.
It was the Div that fought in Crete, took on Rommel in North Africa and later fought its way up Italy against stiff German resistance.
It was also the Div that generated most of the controversies over leadership and strategy, and which has dominated our historiography.
A big subject demands a big book, more than 600 pages long.
Between the hard covers of this very hefty tome you will find 275,000 words and several hundred black-and-white photographs and specially commissioned full-colour maps.
Make sure you can lift it.
After the war, the government published official histories of every Div unit (3 Div had to publish its own, paid for from canteen funds) and there is no shortage of books on Crete, Freyberg and the Italian campaign.
So is there room for this book?
Yes.
The old unit histories are hard to get (and in some cases quite expensive) and most recent books have looked at individual battles, campaigns or personalities.
So despite its size and price, A Bloody Road Home offers an alternative to reading several shelves of books and it pulls the full story together in one place.
Waikanae-based freelance military historian Christopher Pugsley is one of our most distinguished military historians.
He is better known for his World War 1 works, but he pulls off his overview of World War 2 with this book.
He has always been known for his narrative skills.
In this book, he takes the unusual step of writing in the present tense.
Once you get used to that, it does create a sense of immediacy and remind you that the historical figures being written about had no knowledge of how events would work out.
A Bloody Road Home is based on primary sources in Britain and Australasia as well as a formidable mastery of the official and unofficial histories of all the nations involved.
In A Bloody Road Home, Pugsley traverses the historiographical debates.
Like Freyberg's recent biographer, Matthew Wright, he considers the general a better commander than some revisionists have.
The word ''heroic'' in the subtitle is a bit of a giveaway.
I had a couple of reservations.
More could have been said about the country's preparation for war, and the controversial furlough drafts are mentioned in passing, but I suppose there is a limit to the size of every book.
• Gavin McLean is a Wellington historian.
