On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, was used to drop, from an altitude of 31,600 feet, the "Little Boy" atomic weapon, destroying Hiroshima, Japan, at 8:16 a.m. local time. The airplane was flown by Col. Paul Tibbets, commander of the 509th Group, and had a crew of 11. The Enola Gay was accompanied by two other B-29s, Necessary Evil which was used to carry scientific observers, and as a camera plane to photograph the explosion and effects of the bomb and The Great Artiste instrumented for blast measurement.