 As the fighting intensified at Ap Binh Long and Ap Hoa Thanh on the morning of 6 May, South Vietnamese officials received word that VC troops had been spotted in the old French military cemetery () just south of the main gate of Tan Son Nhut.General Cao Văn Viên ordered a company from the ARVN 7th Airborne Battalion, barracked on the southern side of the air base, to investigate.Upon reaching the cemetery, a rectangular park lined with white tombstones and surrounded by a wall of two-story shanty houses, the paratroopers discovered several dozen VC armed with light machine guns, small arms, and a few mortars.