Back in 1994, the Master pondered: Did cigarettes distributed to WWII GIs kill more men than died in battle? Cecil suspected the answer was yes. Another study concurs:
World War II and Korean War Veterans
According to a study looking back on 33 years of cause of death data for people born between 1920 and 1939, the mortality rate for lung cancer among veterans has been nearly twice that of civilians. 2,000,000 World War II and Korean War veterans died an average of 11.1 years sooner than their civilian counterparts, making the toll of premature deaths in terms of “years of life lost” greater than that of all combat casualties from both wars. In addition to higher smoking rates, veterans of these wars were exposed to asbestos which was widely used in submarines, Navy ships and as plumbing and heating insulation.
2,000,000 > 416,800 US WWII military casualties + ~44,000 Korean War US military casualties http://www.lungcanceralliance.org/facing/FocusOnVeterans_Conflicts.html
I’m not sure which study was cited, but the abstract to this paper is of interest.
During the World War II and Korean War era, the U.S. military freely distributed cigarettes to overseas personnel and provided low-cost tobacco products on domestic military bases. In fact, even today the military continues to sell subsidized tobacco products on its bases. Using a variety of instrumental variables approaches to deal with nonrandom selection into the military and into smoking, we provide substantial evidence that cohorts with higher military participation rates subsequently suffered more premature mortality. More importantly, we show that a large fraction, 35 to 79 percent, of the excess veteran deaths due to heart disease and lung cancer are attributable to military-induced smoking.
…and excess veteran deaths are substantial: WWII veterans on average lived 11.6 years less after they returned than civilians, if I’m interpreting the paper (that I only skimmed) correctly. [1]