Dear Bill,

No. The unique record number on the left 'only' opens a new thread in the Forum of the historisches-Marinearchiv, and automatically puts the main particulars of the record in the thread's header.
It is a fonctionallity t-Geronimo implemented in the different databases on the historisches-Marinearchiv for users to easily generate messages/questions/... in the forum regarding a particular record in a database without the need for the user to copy the record's references into the thread.

Sometimes there is also a link in the column 'source', and those open files that provide more information about something in the record.
You might spot the links Q009.pdf and Q010.pdf in U870's records about its CO.
They open lists with all CO's known to us, one list sorted alfabetically, the other one by U-number.

In the search form there are a 3rd kind of links, displayed as icons marked 'PDF', in the column 'Explanations ...' and referring to pdf-files that provide help as to the information that might be entered in the search form, its format, ...

Best regards,
Walter