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Last combat usage On 18 December 1972, during Operation Linebacker II (also known as President Richard Nixon's, "Christmas Bombing"), USAF B-52 Stratofortresses of the Strategic Air Command conducted a maximum effort bombing campaign against North Vietnam. As the bombers approached the target, SAMs (Surface To Air Missiles) commenced to explode around the StratofortressesMcCarthy, p. 139. One bomber, callsign "Brown III", completed its bomb run, and while turning outbound was warned that Vietnam People's Air Force MiGs were now airborne. Brown III's tailgunner, SSGT Samuel O. Turner, locked onto a fast approaching MiG-21 interceptor and shot it down with a burst of his four .50 caliber machine guns. Turner became the first bomber tailgunner to shoot down an enemy aircraft since the Korean War. His B-52 Stratofortress, tail number 55-0676, is currently preserved and on display at Fairchild AFB, Spokane, Washington. On 24 December 1972, during the same bombing campaign, the B-52 Stratofortress "Diamond Lil", now on display at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado, was attacking the railroad yards at Thai Nguyen. Rising for the interception was another NVAF MiG-21, Diamond Lil's tailgunner, Airman Albert E. Moore locked onto the MiG at 4,000 yards, and opened fire with his quad .50 caliber machine guns. Moore's kill was witnessed by another B-52 tailgunner, TSGT Clarence W. Chute, who observed the MiG-21 to fall away on fire. Moore was the last bomber tail gunner to shoot down an enemy aircraft with machine guns during war time.

The last time tail gunners themselves were ever used in combat were in the Gulf War of 1990-1991, where B-52Gs were used in air-strikes against Iraqi positions in Kuwait and Iraq. However after a controversial incident wherein a missile, locked onto the signal of the tail gunner's radar, struck a B-52, tail gunners started being deactivated on all B-52s starting on October 1, 1991. No air-to-air kills were made by B-52s in the Gulf War, and tail gunners have never been used in combat since.

http://reference.findtarget.com/search/Tail%20gunner/

Here’s my “Five O’Clock Folly” story from when I attended my first and last Pentagon press briefing in the early 70’s.
They give you a “Current Events” set of newspaper clippings of current news and in one of them, I notice that a MIG 21 had flown thru “a B-52 cell” (i.e. 3 planes.).

I openly asked Press Officer Jerry Friedheim (A nice guy with a bad job) whether the B-52 had fired on the MIG, and Jerry said, with a straightface, it was classified.

To which I replied: “The Communist pilot knew if he was fired on, the B-52 crewman knew if he fired on the MIG, the crew knew, the Air Force knew, Hanoi knew, so why can’t we know?”

My point was to find out if our B-52’s had A/A machine guns, esp. on the tails as it was reported that a number of models didn’t have MGs for self-defense (just as many F-4’s, esp. Recon models and Sidewinder models), didn’t - which pissed of a lot of pilots and may have cost us some of them).

I left the press briefing in a really bad mood and went up to Gen. Chappie James (also in the press office), and said, “this really is stupid”, to which big Chappie just smiled in acknowledgment.

Most press conferences are a waste of time which is why I never attended any in Vietnam at JUSPAO II. If I needed to know something, I knew who to go to for it.

Military Advisors were much more open and honest in answering questions that did not involve security.