Remember that scene in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds where two of the U.S. soldiers kill German guards by punching them with pistols mounted to gloves? Well, believe it or not, the glove gun was a real weapon the U.S. military manufactured—albeit in very small numbers.

Designed for the U.S. Navy and manufactured by the RF Sedgley company, the gun is a simple device that does just what it looks like. It's a single-shot .38 S&W barrel mounted alongside a plunger, which extends beyond the muzzle of the barrel. The whole thing is riveted onto a heavy leather glove (basically a gardening glove). When the wearer makes a fist, the plunger and muzzle are left slightly in front of the knuckles. Upon punching something or someone, the plunger is depressed, which fires the cartridge.

Sedgley Glove Gun Rock Island Auction Company

Reloading requires releasing a catch and pivoting the barrel up to eject the empty round and load a new one by hand. Not a particularly speedy operation.

Between 50 and 200 of them were made and issued. However, there is no confirmed record of any actually being used in combat. There are suggestions that the OSS also used them, but these are also unconfirmed.

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The Sedgley glove gun I had a chance to look at was issued to a Navy beach jumper, whose job was to use a PT boat to cause confusion and chaos immediately before and during amphibious landings. He was instructed to use the gun in case his boat was boarded by the Japanese. The idea was that when his hands were raised as if to surrender, the gun would not be visible. Of course, nobody had adequately answered the question of what to do about the second Japanese soldier, since the single cartridge took so long to reload. So the PT boat fellow boxed up the glove gun, mailed it home, and found himself a 1911 to carry instead.

As the curator of the WWII Museum told me while we were discussing this very unusual weapon, the most impressive part of the whole idea is that the Navy actually issued it. Consider that at some point in history, someone approached a senior officer to suggest they issue a single-shot pistol mounted on glove—and that officer thought it was such a good idea that he authorized a bunch of money to make it happen. War truly is surreal.

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Ian McCollum is the founder of ForgottenWeapons.com, a website and YouTube channel dedicated preserving the history of rare and obscure guns from around the world.

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