In 1933 they moved to the city of Bobruisk, where he completed his ninth grade of school in 1938 and graduated from the local aeroclub before entering the military in November that year.

[1][2] Immediately after the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Arkhipenko entered combat on the front lines of the Second World War with the rest of his regiment.

Not long transferring to the 129th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment in October 1943 as a squadron commander, he went on to rapidly increase his tally of shootdowns throughout 1944, having switched to flying the P-39 Airacobra.

During the war he participated the battles of Kovel, Lutsk, Kiev, Kursk, Belgorod, Stalingrad, Kharkhov, the Dnieper, Kirovgrad, Yassko-Kishinev, Lvov-Sandomierz, and Silesia.

By the end of the war he reached the rank of major and had been promoted to the position of deputy commander of the air rifle service within his unit; his tally stood at 28 solo and 15 shared shootdowns gained over the course of 467 sorties flown on I-153, LaGG-3, Yak-1, Yak-7B, and P-39 aircraft, engaging in 102 dogfights throughout the process.

After graduating from the Air Force Academy of Monino in May 1951 he was made commander of a training regiment in the Stalingrad Military Aviation School based in Novosibirsk.