Kirpichenko was born on 25 September 1922 in Kursk, Kursk Oblast, part of the Russian SFSR, in the USSR. He attended the No. 4 Air Force Special School, which provided primary flight training alongside the usual secondary education. He went on to attend the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy, but the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 interrupted his studies. He joined the 103rd Guards Rifle Division in January 1945, seeing action in the closing stages of the war, in Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia, and at the Balaton Defensive Operation in March that year. During his wartime service he was awarded the Medal "For Courage", for his part in the Vienna Offensive. His unit remained in action until the surrender of Axis forces in Czechoslovakia on 12 May 1945.